Hellmouth Ascendent Trilogy Revamped Book 1:Dusk
by hmascendent3
Summary: War is coming. A slayer leads the way, a son of darkness heralds shadows and a young girl claims her birthright as the light of all lights. These heroes and others in a last stand against the ancient evil.
1. Foreword

"Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really, but it does... So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are... You'll see what I mean."

-Whistler. Becoming, Part I

Ten years ago, Buffy the Vampire Slayer made its debut. We watched, we enjoyed. We saw a young girl with an unwanted destiny become a warrior, a martyr, a sister, a daughter, a lover and a hero. We shared in her triumphs and we commiserated with her failures.

As she proceeded through the years, she accrued loved ones who became family - Xander, Willow, Giles, Angel, Spike, and Dawn. For these people we cheered and celebrated, watching their love and their light carry them and each other through the darkest of times.

Some lights failed however, some lives were lost or simply left: Jenny, Anya, Tara, Oz and Joyce. We grieved for these people. We felt the loss of them as Buffy and her friends did. For moments, brief seconds, the line between fantasy and reality blurred and we actually felt the pains of grief as if these people truly had been torn from our lives and cast into darkness.

In the end, Buffy and her family triumphed. There was love and hate, sacrifice and nobility, glory and despair and in the end the darkness was beaten back. For a time. The stories ended and in 2003, Buffy and her family left us to parts unknown, leaving us only with each other.

There were other stories of course: The vampire with a soul; Angel. And we followed his stories in LA and his new family. We saw lights rise and fall. We saw honor and treachery, joy and misery. We even saw darkness redeemed in the form of Faith, the slayer that should have never been and yet was. And in time, Angel's stories came to a close and once again, we were left with only each other.

And now there are new stories. Some of them are familiar, some are new and we are their caretaker. These stories do not belong to us and certainly not to me. Nor do they belong to Joss (though he of course deserves a measure of credit) nor to anyone else.

These stories belong to you.

These are stories of love and hate, glory and failure, despair and hope. Family is a prevailing theme in these stories, the strength and beauty of family. As is loss. It cannot be promised a happy ending to these stories. All that can be promised is the best ending that could occur. May they satisfy, may they entertain and in the end, may they bring perhaps a measure of comfort.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is gone, Angel is gone, all we have been left with is each other.

Perhaps, that is enough.

Until then we remain

Yours,

Rachelia, the Archivist

Kass the Webmistress

Rachel Rayne the Custodian of Stories

D. Rayne the Caretaker of Stories

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


	2. Chapter 1 Sibling Revelry

**Hellmouth Ascendant Trilogy**

**Book One: **

**Dusk**

**Chapter 1**

**Sibling Revelry **

_Wham! _A roundhouse kick sent the vampire sprawling to the ground. With the practiced grace of experience, Buffy Summers almost casually plunged the stake into the creature. It had time to gasp once before exploding into dust. She turned to address her companion.

"Okay, one down. Dusk, how's life in your corner?" she queried wryly.

Her companion, Alec "Dusk" Giles, was engaged in some kind of elaborate kung fu fighting with the second vampire. As opposed to Buffy's 'Beat them senseless and stake them' approach, Dusk preferred a sort of liquid-dancing style of fighting that was one-part gymnastics, one-part dancing and involved almost a Hollywood quality choreographed fighting style, consisting of a lot of blocks, parries, summersaults and combinations of punches and kicks.She watched, admittedly a little impressed, as Dusk snapped out a few kicks to the vampires head, then torso ending the combination of strikes with some kind of spinning-cartwheel kick that propelled the vampire into a tree and impaled him upon a tree branch, where he too, exploded into dust. Dusk took a moment to savor the victory before addressing the slayer.

"No complaints here," he quipped in that inherited light British accent of his.

For a moment, his head tilted in a perfect imitation of his father's when he was amused or pleased with himself. The difference being that his father—her newly exonerated Watcher, Rupert Giles—was usually more proud of himself for having unearthed an obscure, yet vitally essential piece of lore, rather than his fighting prowess. Still the resemblance between father and son was, at times, unmistakable.

"You know," Buffy started as she picked up her bag that had been discarded during the fight, "You never did tell us what style of fighting that was." She arched an inquiring eyebrow to the older man. Buffy herself was quite skilled at martial arts, however unlike Dusk, she saw it as a means to an end. Dusk turned it into an art form in and of itself.

Dusk shrugged "It's a base style of Wushu with a mixture of several types of different martial arts; Judo, Muy Thai, Ju-jitsu, Krav Maga, Jeet Kune Do." Dusk fell into step next to her, "I've never found just one set of movements and philosophies that totally agree with me."

Buffy snorted, "Obviously. Guess you've had a lot of time on your hands." She turned to regard him as they left the graveyard.

Dusk hesitated a moment before carefully offering an explanation, "Time moves differently in the demonic dimension. I've had several decades to practice." Dusk ceased to speak, clearly uncomfortable to offer any further information.

To be fair since Dusk's arrival to Sunnydale less than four months ago, he'd been remarkably forthcoming about himself to the slayer and to his father. He was Giles' son by birth, having been the result of a fling between the watcher and an acquaintance of his, Diedre, during his youth. Along with a circle of friends, they had practiced dark magic to savor the rush it gave them. Unfortunately, they'd made the grievous error of summoning a very powerful demon named Ehyghon. The demon in turn, possessed and murdered nearly everyone in the circle, before finally being slain by the combined efforts of Buffy, Giles, and her lover at the time, the vampire Angel. Before being stopped however, Ehyghon had possessed Diedre, upon doing so discovering the unborn child in her womb.

Rather than simply killing the baby as he would eventually kill the mother, years later having finally tracked down Giles in Sunnydale, Ehyghon infused it with his own demonic energy and transported it to his home realm: the demonic realm. There, it was further infused with a greater Keeper demon, a darkness demon.

Unlike most other demons, the Keeper demons were notoriously pragmatic and disdainful of their demonic brethren, this particular one found other demons especially distasteful. It took the child under its wing and tutored it in all matters of both the occult and combat, in the hopes of using it as a weapon against other demons.

Time moved differently in that realm, as Alec had stated. A hundred years in the demonic realm was barely three and a half on earth. His aging was retarded by the keeper demon's power, giving him much more time to train and prepare. Upon reaching maturity, the child now man, christened 'Dusk', in honor of his darkness demon-half, was ready to be returned to Earth to start slaughtering demons that found their way there. Before doing so, however, Dusk ventured into the realm of the dead, where all souls resided, in search of his mother.

Instead, he encountered the soul of the techno pagan, Jenny Calendar; who had been attracted to his presence because of the blood he shared with her beloved, his father. She revealed to him his heritage, his family name and told him where to find his father. She implored him to join his father's crusade against the forces of evil. Dusk readily agreed, and now bearing another name, Alec Giles, he left the realm of the dead…and arrived in Sunnydale, California. That was as much as he was willing to reveal of himself, to Buffy anyway, and she respected his privacy enough not to pry. Besides, her experience with Angel had taught her that sometimes, there are things better left unsaid.

"So," Buffy tossed out trying to uplift the mood of the conversation, "Are we going to go see your dad?" She smiled, noticing that Dusk's expression softened a little.

"It'd be a good idea," he turned to regard the blond woman with a wry smile. "You know how Dad worries." Dusk knew that Giles loved the slayer with a father's love, rather than being threatened by it, Dusk decided to treat the girl like the younger sister he never had. Buffy and Dusk had grown especially close over the last few months, though often Buffy found herself attempting to placate her far more serious "older brother". His time in the demonic realm had emotionally aged him far beyond his apparent twenty-three years to her twenty.

Buffy smiled at him. "Yeah, you know how fathers can be." She caught herself just as Dusk's face fell. "Or you don't, but if you did," she added hurriedly, "You'd know that Giles is top notch. Really. He's just the best," she finished; fervently hoping that she hadn't induced another bout of melancholy in the somber youth. Dusk smiled slightly, much to her relief.

"Yes. My father truly is the best." he smiled indulgently at her and tousled her hair affectionately, appreciating her efforts to cheer him up.

Buffy squawked in protest, "Cut it out, Alec! I have a date tonight!" She socked him in the shoulder as Dusk chuckled.

"Oh yes, I forgot, girls can't afford to have a single hair out of place, lest their attractiveness plummet to abysmal depths," he sighed melodramatically, "Americans."

Buffy chuckled good-naturedly, "Oh really? Perhaps I should clue Willow in towards this attitude," referring to her best friend and Dusk's current paramour.

They had met his first day here and it had been love at first sight. They had been inseparable ever since and their relationship had been so disgustingly super-romantic, their friends began referring to them as "Mr. And Mrs. Giles," a thought that neither of them seemed to have any problem with. Dusk shot her a wry look.

"Willow is the exception," Dusk added carefully. Buffy snorted.

"R-i-i-i-ght. And this would have nothing to do with the fact that if I did tell her this, she'd turn you into something icky?" Willow had become a witch of no small ability over the past four plus years.

Dusk stopped, his face suddenly grim, Buffy jolted to a halt a few steps ahead of him.

"What? I was kidding. Joke. Ha ha?" Buffy exclaimed. Dusk shook his head.

"It's not that, I just…I hate having to keep things from her," Buffy instantly understood. Aside from herself, her boyfriend Spike, and Giles, no one knew that Dusk wasn't completely human, a fact that Dusk kept under very tight guard. Buffy placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"Look, you have to tell her sooner or later. She's Willow, she'll understand," Dusk sighed.

"I know it's just…" he struggled for the right words.

"Hard to trust when you have so much to lose?" Buffy gently asked. Dusk sighed again.

"Exactly. I haven't felt about anyone the way I feel about her, not ever, and between her breakup with Oz and Tara mysteriously up and leaving her right after that whole debacle with Adam, the last thing she needs is the stress and uncertainty that accompanies dating outside her species," Dusk spat out, a large dollop of self-loathing readily apparent in his tone.

"Hey…." Buffy took his arms and looked up into his face, "What Willow needs is a guy that will love her like crazy, that'll take care of her and help her take care of herself." She placed his hands on the sides of his face, shaking him for emphasis. "And I know that you totally qualify. So cut yourself some slack, Willow could do a lot worse than you," she smiled at him. Dusk relented and smiled back, leaning in to kiss Buffy's brow, resting his head against hers.

"You're a good sister," he whispered. Buffy smiled wryly.

"Yeah well, I've gotten kind of used to having a big brother around, even if he does mess up my hair right before a date."

Laughing she reached up and tousled his dark hair in revenge. He chuckled. She released him and fell back into step beside him as they headed towards Giles' magic shop.

A voice called out in a thick Cockney accent.

"That was touching, fetch me a hankie, I think I'm gonna weep," Buffy rolled her eyes and turned, not surprised to see a pale, peroxide-blond man leaning against a tree smoking a cigarette.

"Oh you are, are you?" she sauntered over him, "That doesn't sound very effective. Bet I could do some things to you that would have you bawling like a widdle baby," Buffy finished this in a little-baby voice, pouting her lip.

Spike snorted, "Yeah, right. You and what army?" He flicked the cigarette and looked down to regard the slayer arrogantly. She leaned in close to him, eyes batting seductively.

"Oh, I think you know," she whispered demurely. Spike grinned.

"Yeah? Well, maybe I need a reminder," he shot back challengingly. Buffy put a perfectly manicured fingernail to her lip and contemplated.

"Hmm, well, okay." Reaching out she grasped a fistful of Spike's black T-shirt and pulled him into a long kiss. Dusk had the courtesy to keep his eyes averted. Finally after what seemed like quite a while, they parted. Spike smacked his lips pleasantly.

"That was a pretty convincing argument. I've got a better one, though." Grinning wickedly, he leaned in and cupping his hand over her ear, whispered something to Buffy. Buffy's face went from amused, slid right into shocked, and finally settled at mock outraged.

"Spike!" she cried out swatting the chortling vampire. She turned to look back at Dusk who was making a pointed effort to not stare at them, then she turned back to regard her lover demurely. "Later," she whispered, her voice full of innuendo towards hours of 'convincing arguments', before nestling against his chest and kissing him again.

Spike, still chuckling, wrapped an arm around her and walked over to the waiting Dusk. Dusk coughed once in politeness then turned to regard the pair. They had started seeing each other shortly after Buffy's previous boyfriend, the ex-commando Riley Finn, had been recalled by the government and reassigned to God-knows-where, Nevada. What had started out as a particularly bizarre rebound relationship seemed to have deepened past that, for despite—or perhaps because of their constant bickering—there was a real undercurrent of mutual care and affection between the two.

"Still got that hankie, Spike? I think I may need it now after THAT display."

Spike shot him a wry look and laughed. "Sod off, mate. I've got the most beautiful girl in the world here." He gave Buffy a tight squeeze, causing her to squeal in delight. His expression became wicked, "and later on I intend to—Oof!" He gasped as Buffy casually slammed her elbow into his abs. Shooting him a dangerous look, Buffy interrupted.

"He intends to be a perfect gentleman and not say things that are going to get his ass kicked," she looked up at Spike with mock adoring eyes, "right, honey?"

"Right. Sure. What she said," Spike managed to groan out, gingerly rubbing his aching stomach, "Bloody hell." Buffy smiled and turned back to Dusk.

"Good," she added perkily, "then let's go visit Giles and then we can discuss what you intend to do later, all right, lover?" Leaning forward, she patted Spike's stomach, eliciting another groan of protest from the vampire, before flashing a huge little girl grin at the both of them and bounding away gaily. Dusk and Spike exchanged looks, Spike held up a warning finger.

"Not one word, mate, I mean it," he growled out. Dusk held his hands up placating.

"Furthest thought from my mind, honestly," Dusk reassured him.

Spike snorted and pointed to his head, "Good 'cause remember, this bloody chip in my head says I can't harm people. You being half-demon and all, I think it's within my capacity to beat you senseless." Dusk sent him an amused look.

"Well, it's within your capacity to TRY. But I don't think the Initiative installed a chip that would allow you to actually succeed. Unless, of course, government issue is now capable of miracles," Dusk finished wryly.

Spike and Dusk had formed a fast friendship that involved, amongst other things, mutual torment. With both of them coming from across the pond sharing similar interests in the finer things in life: mainly beautiful women, loud music and strong drink, the pair were as close as brothers though neither would admit it.

Spike was about to comment when Buffy's voice echoed from up the street.

"Boys?"

"Coming!" Dusk and Spike answered in unison.

Sending Dusk another dangerous look, Spike headed up the street while being mindful of his still-aching abs.

Dusk chuckled and slapped Spike on the shoulder comradely. "Look at it this way, it could be worse."

Spike sent him an amazed look. "I'm a vampire dating the bloody slayer. I can't pummel anything without horns. I can't even feed myself without raiding the slaughterhouse. How could it possibly be any worse?" he demanded. Dusk leaned in and whispered something to Spike whose eyes widened in terror.

"That's not due for another two and a half weeks!" he cried out. Dusk grinned wryly.

"You've got it memorized?"

Spike snorted and nodded emphatically. "You bloody well better believe it! She's enough of a handful the other twenty-seven days out of the month," he leveled an accusatory finger at Dusk, "And don't tell me the man dating the powerful witch doesn't have her little cycle-o-joy committed to memory as well."

Dusk acquiesced to the fact and grimaced. "Point. It's knowledge vital to our survival as men, I suppose," Spike snorted.

"Yeah well, most men suffer from broken chinaware during their girls' monthly insanity. I suffer from possible broken bones and you may wind up turned into a newt."

Dusk grinned. "A newt?" He asked innocently.

Spike caught his eye and grinned.

"'I got better!'" they finished in unison, laughing.

"God bless Monty Python, mate," Spike said grinning, "only good thing to come out of England in the last thirty years."

Dusk nodded. "Punk rock and footy; Manchester United," Dusk added.

Spike agreed emphatically. "Amen."

"BOYS!_"_ Buffy's voice barked out. Spike and Dusk shot each other alarmed looks.

"Coming!" they repeated in unison.

Spike regarded the other man. "Let's—"

"Yeah, let's be going," Dusk nodded.

"Good idea."

"Yeah."

The half demon and the vampire quickly hurried up the street. After all, there are some creatures you just _don't_ keep waiting.


	3. Chapter 2 Being a Good Big Brother

The bell above the door rang pleasantly as the slayer, her vampire lover and her half-demon brother entered the magic shop. Rupert Giles was busy stacking some glass jars on a high shelf as he craned his neck to regard the new arrivals.

"Hello. Welcome to—" He stopped his automatic greeting as he recognized the new arrivals. "Oh. Hello Buffy, Spike," he smiled warmly. "Hello son." Buffy and Spike both nodded greetings to the Watcher.

Dusk smiled. "Hi dad." He walked up to him as Buffy and Spike took seats against the wall, chatting.

Giles turned around to regard his son, "How have you –" his hand accidentally brushed against the stack of jars and without warning, they began to quiver and pitch forward.

Dusk yelled in alarm, "Dad! Watch out!" Giles frowned in puzzlement before turning to see the stack of glass jars toppling upon him.

"OH!" Giles yelled, throwing his hands up to brace himself against the onslaught of heavy glass. The onslaught never came. Dusk shot his arms out towards him and two thick tendrils of ropy darkness erupted from under the skin of his wrists, streaked towards the tumbling glass stack and wrapped themselves firmly around them, holding them together and still. Giles warily lowered his arms as Dusk maneuvered the tendrils to carefully place the glass jars back upon the shelf. Giles turned to face him, sighing in relief.

"Thank you, Alec. That could have been most…unpleasant." He smiled and tried not to stare at the tendrils of thick inky cohesive darkness that had emerged from his son's forearms that served as an obvious reminder of his demonic heritage. Dusk smiled tightly at him.

"Not a problem." Finishing with the jars, Dusk snatched his arms back, causing the tendrils to snap and shoot backwards into his skin disappearing from sight. Dusk shook his arms gingerly, attempting to remove the pins-and-needles feeling that always accompanied using his powers. Buffy and Spike walked up from behind him.

"Nice save, Bro," Buffy smiled and patted Dusk's arm, making a pointed emphasis to show that she wasn't bothered in the least by Dusk's abilities. She looked up to survey her watcher. "Giles, you cool?" Giles nodded shaking himself from his uncomfortable reverie.

"Yes, thank you." Moving away from the shelf, he stepped out and clapped his son on the shoulder gratefully, before sliding into 'Watcher Mode'. "How was patrolling tonight, Buffy?"

The slayer shrugged, "Only two vampires, not much of a problem for the dynamic duo," she shot Dusk a wry look, "Of COURSE, it would have gone by quicker if one of us would just use their little bag of tricks to dust the vamp instead of Darth Maul-ing it to death."

Dusk smirked, "It pays not to be too reliant on anything but your own prowess. Self-reliance is the name of the game here." Buffy rolled her eyes, smiled indulgently, and sighed.

"Okay, whatever you say, Bro, I'm just saying that if I had nifty little tendril thingies that shot out of my wrists and stuff, I'd use them for a lot more than merchandise management," she finished gesturing to the newly-restored stack of jars.

Dusk turned and favored his father with a long-suffering glance. Without looking at her, he replied, "That's because you, dear sibling, have a chronic dread of close quarters combat for fear of ruining your manicure." Dusk finally turned to regard a mildly outraged Slayer.

"Hey, this was NOT a cheap manicure," she retorted, gesturing to her fingernails.

Spike snorted behind her, "Yeah, I'll attest to that fact, mate. Got the claw marks to prove it." Dusk tried vainly to stifle a laugh, failing miserably; Buffy whirled around to confront her lover.

"You are SO asking for it, blondie!" she growled.

"Yeah? Look who's talking?" he gestured to her own mane of blond hair. Exasperated, Buffy threw her hands in the air.

"Men!" she cried and sauntered over to Spike, dumping herself onto his lap.

"Oof!" Spike exclaimed, "Bloody Hell, how does such a tiny slip of a thing get to be so bleedin' heavy?" Dusk chuckled as Buffy favored first him, then Spike with a lethal glance leveling a warning finger just under his nose.

"Watch it, lover, or its six inch stiletto heels in two and a half weeks."

Spike's jaw dropped and he shuddered slightly in horror. "Okay, I'm being good."

Buffy instantly perked up. "Good!" Kissing the now quietly protesting Spike on the forehead, she turned her attention to the father and son observing all this, one with slight puzzlement, and the other with wry amusement. Buffy blushed slightly.

"Private joke. Couply stuff," she offered as an explanation.

"Ah!" Both the Giles said in unison, bobbing their heads in perfect time with each other in an expression of understanding. Buffy stifled a laugh.

"Oh no, you two aren't related at ALL!" she grinned. Dusk snorted.

"You should have seen the debates we had regarding what music to listen to," he turned to offer his father a condescending look. "Bay City Rollers, indeed." Giles returned the look defensively.

"What about that...din, you insist on listening to? That 'six inch nails'?" Dusk smirked.

"I think you mean Nine Inch Nails, dad." Spike and Buffy chuckled. Giles flustered slightly.

"Yes, well, be that as it may, it's still noise pollution," Giles countered haughtily. Buffy piped up.

"Oh come on, Giles, why don't you tell him about that collection of Cream albums you showed my mother during that candy incident?" Giles desperately attempted to shush her as Dusk laughed.

"Cream? You listen to Cream?" Dusk howled with glee, "I love it! When was this?"

Giles had turned a rather embarrassed shade of red, scowling at the slayer who had betrayed him so grievously.

"It was…years ago, I doubt I still have them. Probably came to my senses and pitched them out with the rest of the rubbish," Giles then hurriedly went to rearranging a shelf of crystals. Dusk smirked.

"Uh-HUH" Dusk commented sardonically. He threw Buffy a conspiring wink which was quickly returned. "Whatever you say, Dad."

Giles sighed and continued to busy himself with the shelf. Still laughing, Dusk patted his father's shoulder affectionately and walked over to a chair opposite the cooing couple, who were wholly oblivious to his presence. Chuckling quietly, Dusk picked up a book and began to flip through it. He'd inherited his father's love of lore and reading.

A few minutes later, the door swung open, the small bell tinkling as four pairs of eyes lifted from what they were doing to regard the new arrival. Willow Rosenberg bounded in, a font of red hair and cheerfulness.

"Hi everybody," she smiled and waved at Buffy, Spike and Giles. Her eyes fell upon Dusk, and her smile instantly became coy and demure. "Hey, you." She meandered over to him. Dusk's dark eyes lit up and he smiled slightly.

"Hey," he purred, catching her hand in his and placing a warm kiss to it. Willow shook her head.

"Nuh-uh, mister, I want the whole package." Swooping down she captured his mouth in hers in a long tender kiss. After some time, Spike cleared his throat noisily, earning him a swat from both Buffy and Dusk. Dusk finished his kiss and draped the redhead over his lap. She smiled and squirmed getting comfortable, before resting her chin on his chest. Dusk looked down at her amused.

"Is Milady comfortable?" Dusk inquired amused. Willow rocked her head back and forth.

"Uh-huh," she batted her eyes at him, before snuggling against his chest, he smiled and stroked her hair, inhaling deeply her scent, savoring the way the smell of her hair and skin mixed to form a fragrance that was fully Willow.

"Awwwwww," came from opposite them as Buffy and Spike regarded the lovers with deep amusement.

Dusk shot them a look, "Silence. The both of you."

"Yeah," Willow chimed in, "I haven't seen this guy all day, and I'm having happies right now." She replied haughtily.

"Yeah, imagine that. A whole day," Spike scoffed. Dusk shot him a warning look.

"Spike? Think newts," he cautioned the vampire.

Spike shut up immediately as Buffy shot him a confused look.

"What about newts?"

"Yeah," Willow lifted her head up to regard Dusk lazily. "Was that a derogatory witch crack?" Dusk held up his hands.

"No, no. Monty Python reference," he assured her. "I hold witches in very high esteem. One in particular," he smiled at her as she got a big sappy grin on her face.

"Good," she mumbled before nestling back into his chest. Spike shot Dusk a look. NICE SAVE, he mouthed silently. Dusk grimaced in agreement, before setting back comfortably into the chair. Giles spoke up,

"Alec? Will you be coming back to the house to gather the rest of your belongings tonight?"

When Dusk had arrived in Sunnydale, originally he had been living with Giles. However as time wore on it was obvious that Giles simply didn't have the space. So, at Spike's suggestion, Dusk had moved into the abandoned mansion on the hill that Spike, his sire, Drusilla, and Angel, had resided in years before. Dusk was still in the process of moving out.

Alec craned his neck towards his father; careful not to disturb the affectionate witch he had on his lap. "Probably, unless something comes up."

Buffy's cell phone rang, interrupting the little domestic moment that Buffy and Spike were currently indulging in. With a groan of annoyance Buffy eased herself up off of Spike's lap and dug around in her purse for the ringing irritation. She found it and quickly checked the display.

"My mom," she explained, before hitting the talk button and placing the phone to her ear. Spike sighed in frustration and went about examining the contents of the magic shop, bored. Buffy spoke into the phone.

"Yeah, Mom? What's up?" Buffy placed a hand over her other ear to hear her more clearly.

"Buffy, I have to go back to the gallery; we're having an emergency. An entire shipment of impressionistic work never arrived," her mother explained hurriedly.

Buffy closed her eyes in dread, pinching the skin at the bridge of her nose in tension; she knew what was coming,

"So, would you mind too terribly coming home to watch Dawn, until I get back?" From somewhere in the room with her mother came a wail of protest.

"Moooom, not Buffy! Come on, I DON'T need a babysitter, I'm fourteen years old!" Dawn's voice cried out in dismay. Buffy heard bits and pieces of an argument she'd heard too many times in person.

(Goodbye date, Goodbye Spike, Goodbye fun.) Buffy sighed defeated, placing a hand to her head. Spike caught her look of frustration. WHAT? He mouthed silently. Buffy put a hand over the mouthpiece. "Dawn," she sighed, "Mom needs someone to play babysitter tonight."

"Goh!" Spike's eyes widened in frustration as he cursed and kicked the table in front of him, sending it careening into Dusks legs. His head shot up suddenly from its resting place atop Willows head, perplexed.

"What's up?" he asked, gently shushing Willows protestations at the sudden lack of his cheek against her hair. Spike sighed disgustedly.

"Buffy's got to go watch the rugrat," he bit out gesturing to the slayer. Dusk nodded.

"Oh," Dusk replied neutrally as he stroked Willow's hair thoughtfully as she made happy noises. Meanwhile Buffy had returned to her phone call.

"Look, mom, as much as I'd LOVE to watch Dawn," she hoped her mother hadn't caught the not-so-subtle hint of sarcasm in her voice, "I have plans, can't someone else do it? How about Xander? Dawn likes Xander," Buffy pleaded. Dusk frowned, not sure why a sudden surge of something resembling envy raced through him like an electric current. He quickly gave himself a good hard mental shake. After all, enamors of a fourteen year-old girl certainly were not his concern.

"I'm sorry, Buffy. Xander says he's out with Anya and –" she stopped and addressed Dawn "What? What is it? What do you want?" There was some more commotion as Dawn said something inaudible. "Dusk?" her mother repeated puzzled. Buffy's eyes lit up.

"Dusk? She wants Dusk to stay with her? Hey, that's perfect, he's right here I can ask him," placing her hand over the mouthpiece again, she turned…and stopped as both Willow and Dusk regarded her coolly. Willow spoke first.

"Did you just volunteer MYboyfriend for babysitter duty because otherwise YOU wouldn't be able to spend time with YOUR boyfriend?" Willow asked quietly. Buffy's manner became instantly sheepish.

"Oops. My bad, Will, if you and your man have plans tonight…?" Her manner was half-imploring, half-embarrassed.

Willow let her sweat for a few more moments before harrumphing, "Well, you're just lucky that I have to go study for that theology exam, or else you'd be in big trouble, missy." She stuck her lip out in a pretty comical attempt at being fierce.

Buffy smiled relieved then frowned, "Uh Wills? It's Christmas break, remember? No school?" Willow's jaw took on a stubborn tilt.

"Unlike some people I know, I believe in being prepared," she retorted, miffed. Buffy just smiled, indulging the academic workaholic.

"Thanks Will," she turned back to the phone when Dusk cleared his throat nosily. Buffy looked up again.

"What?" she demanded, and then she blushed again, "Oh sorry. Alec, would you mind watching Dawn tonight? Just for a few hours? Pretty please?"

Spike chimed in. "Yeah mate, pretty please?" Dusk shot him a withering look.

"THAT was pathetic," he leveled a finger at Spike, "You owe me, man." Spike nodded.

"I owe you, mate, whatever you want," Spike spread his hands in a grand gesture of generosity. Dusk considered.

"Your copy of the Sid and Nancy vinyl," Dusk replied. Spike's face darkened.

"I don't owe you THAT much," Dusk grinned.

"All right then, how about a recording?"

Spike nodded, "Deal."

"Upup! AND a bottle of scotch: the Macallan, the twenty-five," Alec added.

"You're evil mate."

"You want to get laid?" Alec grinned. Buffy looked mortified as Spike growled

"Goh, mate! You've really got me by the stones!"

"That's right and that will be the most attention your…_stones_ will be seeing unless my demands are met. Savvy?"

Spike laughed, "God yes, thank you. Fine, you have a deal, now will you do it?" Spike implored.

Dusk sighed before turning to Buffy, "Tell your mother I'll be over shortly," Dusk said. Buffy grinned in glee and kissed Dusks' cheek.

"You're a good big brother."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Dusk fumed quietly before gently easing Willow off his lap and getting to his feet. Buffy turned her attention back to the phone.

"Mom? Dusk would be MORE than happy to watch Dawn for a few hours."

There was a silence on the other line before her mother spoke up, sounding relieved and a little amazed.

"Well that idea seems fine by Dawn, so I guess I'll be going. Tell Dusk to help himself to anything in the fridge. Oh, and it being Christmas break, tell him Dawn can stay up as late as she likes."

"Right, Mom, I'll tell him. Bye," Buffy hit the END button and tossed the phone into the bag before lowering herself back down onto Spike's lap. She turned to address Dusk; he cut her off with a finger.

"Don't say it," he warned her. Buffy grinned.

"I owe you one," she said in a sing-songy voice. Dusk growled in annoyance.

"Spike, get her under control before I get a razor and shave her head bald!" Spike, chuckling, drew the slayer into his arms.

"Come on now, luv, let's not tease the nice man who's letting you off the hook so we can go enjoy ourselves tonight." Buffy pouted.

"Oh all right," Buffy smiled and kissed him as Dusk collected his coat. He turned and addressed Willow.

"Come on princess, I'll walk you home," he offered his arm, which she gladly took. Turning his head, Dusk called out to Giles.

"Dad, I'll see you later on tonight,"

"Yes. Of course, have a good night, son. Goodbye, Willow," Giles replied. Willow waved at him as he went back to sorting through a bin of talismans. Chuckling, Dusk turned to Buffy and Spike.

"Later brat," he teased, mussing up Buffy's hair again, ignoring her wail of protest. Spike held up his hand, which Dusk slapped. Spike looked up at Dusk.

"Thanks again, mate," Spike said. Dusk snorted.

"Just make sure that recording is a good one, all right? No slapdash dubbing." He turned to the woman on his arm.

"Shall we?"

Willow sighed and shrugged melodramatically, "If we must," grinning she pecked him on the cheek. Smiling, he held the door open; she caressed his face with her hand as she walked by. He quickly followed, the bell above the door signaling their departure.


	4. Chapter 3 Dawn's Holy Grail

Dusk stood at the Summers' front door. After rapping, it opened revealing a contrite young woman.

"Hi Dusk." Dawn smiled shyly and straightened out the dress she was wearing. A dress she had changed into the instant she heard that Dusk was coming over. Dusk smiled warmly at her.

"Hey petite, how are you?" Inwardly, Dusk was confused. There was this…feeling he had around Dawn. Not like with Willow, certainly not even remotely sexual. But there was...something there. Dawn smiled at him.

"I'm good, I'm really good, I'm very…of the good." She blushed and bit her lower lip, humiliated that she was rambling. "How are you?" she asked hurriedly. Dusk smiled wryly.

"Cold. Are you going to let me in?" The autumn chill in Southern California had been unusually bitter for the area. Dawn turned a little redder.

"Oh God, I'm sorry. Please com-come on in." She held the door open for him as he stepped into the house. His back was to her as she sent a suffering look skyward, before looking back at him and smiling as he turned around.

"So what's on the itinerary for the evening?" Dusk asked pleasantly.

"Oh we can do anything you want to, I mean if there is anything you want to do because I want to do anything you want to do. I'm going to be quiet now." Dawn shut her mouth with an audible clack and blushed. Dusk just smiled and on impulse, stroked her hair affectionately. Dawn closed her eyes blissfully as a feeling of utter warmth, security, and peace filled her. Suddenly Dusk's brain caught up with him and he quickly jerked his hand back. Dawn's eyes opened and she made a soft sound of protest. An uncomfortable silence pervaded the room.

"Movie?" Dusk asked timidly, pointing to the living room.

"Yeah, that's a good idea. Let's go do that." Dawn hurried out of the hallway into the living room leaving a fairly confused Dusk to follow sedately.

"Okay," Dawn called out, peering intently at a shelf of videos, "what do you feel like watching?"

Dusk sat on the couch watching the news. Without looking up, he answered, "It's your call, petite, whatever you want is fine with me." Her face still to the videos, Dawn felt a rush of heat flood her cheeks as she gave THAT notion some thought, before biting her lower lip and turning around with a movie in hand.

"This looks good." Putting the movie into the VCR and hitting play, she turned and headed towards the couch. Dusk cleared a space beside him and Dawn sat tentatively down next to him.

"What are we watching?" Dusk asked.

"'Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail'," she looked up at him. "Is that all right?" Dusk smiled broadly.

"One of my favorite movies. Thank you, petite." Dawn smiled, deeply pleased, and settled into the couch to watch it. They laughed as the black knight came onto the screen, Dusk mimicking him while they watched, Dawn laughing. At the scene with the virgins of the castle Anthrax, Dusk tried to cover Dawns' ears.

"You're way too young for this," he chided gently. Dawn responded by slugging him with a pillow, putting behind it enough force that would have made her sister proud. They quieted down and continued watching the movie. Dawn focused on the film a lot harder than normal.

(What ISit about this guy? Aside from the fact that he's tall, dark and gorgeous. Is this how Buffy felt around Angel?)

Dawn had once stolen Buffy's diary and had read it cover to cover. She had read about her first meeting with Angel and how he had made her feel. Sneaking a quick peek at Dusk, she stared at his dark eyes. They were black with hints of deep green and violet in them and they shone almost iridescently, very odd. (And penetrating. VERY penetrating.) Dusk noticed Dawn staring at him, turned and smiled that little half-smile of his that turned her insides to liquid.

"Everything okay?" he asked politely.

"Huh?" Dawn responded unaware, before her brain caught up with her. She mentally shook herself hard. "Sure. Everything's fine, you just…." She struggled to come up with something, "…your hair looks weird in this light." Inwardly, Dawn groaned. (Your hair looks weird? Nice one, doofus. ) Dusk reached up and patted his dark hair smooth, smiling slightly. He returned his attention to Dawn.

"Better?" he asked, eyebrows arched in amusement. Dawn blushed.

"Yeah much, that looks much better. Not," Dawn added hurriedly, "that you looked bad before, exactly." Dawn sighed and decided to give up talking before she went back to the movie. Dusk smiled and returned his attention to the film as well.

As the film ended, it was near ten o' clock; Dawn yawned and turned to Dusk.

"So did you have fun–" she stopped as she noticed Dusk, his chin resting lightly on his chest, dozing quietly. Dawn very carefully stood up and shut off the television, and then she stood there a while.

(I could just go to bed, and mom or Buffy could wake him up when they got home.)

Dawn started to turn but then stopped. She couldn't do it. She just couldn't pass up this opportunity. Carefully creeping to the couch, she took a black blanket from the top of it and gently sitting next to the slumbering Dusk, she covered them both with it. Curling her legs underneath her, she sighed and very slowly, laid her head on Dusks' shoulder. She closed her eyes, feeling his body rise and fall with each breath. She inhaled deeply, picking up a trace of something. (His shampoo or maybe his aftershave? Old Spice?) She inhaled again, comforted by the scent and quietly drifted off.

Dusk opened his eyes a while later, feeling groggy. He tried to lift his arm, but it felt like something was weighing it down. Looking to his side, he discovered the cause. There was Dawn, curled up against his arm with her head resting against his shoulder. Dusk smiled even though confusion raced through his body. He studied the way her face looked while she slept; the childlike innocence and peace that pervaded her features. The way her eyelids fluttered every now and then. Gently, he reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

At his touch, Dawn gave a contented sigh, her lips curling into a lazy blissful smile. Dusk smiled and very gently picked the slumbering girl up, carrying her in his arms up the stairs toward her bedroom. She stirred slightly, before burrowing into his chest, making unintelligible sounds of gratification. Reaching her door, Dusk focused slightly, and a shadow from the wall detached and slid under the door and into the room. A few moments later, it was confirmed that the room was in fact empty. Releasing his control over the shadow, Dusk entered the room and gently laid the young girl upon the bed, first removing her shoes and socks. She made a sound of protest as he released her from his hold. Her face frowned in her sleep and she began to stir.

"Shhhhh," Dusk whispered, stroking her hair back. Her face eased, she quieted and drifted back to sleep. Then, carefully, he covered her with her blanket. He smiled slightly at the sheets.

(Harry Potter. Nice.)

Satisfied, Dusk stepped out of the room, taking a long moment to gaze at the sleeping girl, a thousand different emotions playing across his face. Finally, with a sigh of resignation, he quietly closed the door, leaving Dawn to her dreams.

Buffy opened the front door sometime later whispering, "Shhh, I don't know if anyone's awake." Dusk materialized out of the shadows by the door.

"Someone is," he stated quietly. Buffy nearly yelped in surprise before whacking him in the arm with her purse.

"Don't DO that. New rule: no shadow-tricks in my house, okay?" Dusk smiled slightly and Buffy turned to address Spike, still outside. "Good night." She smiled and kissed him; once, twice, and then on the third kiss, she started laughing and pushed him away, closing the door and laying her back against it, her expression blissful.

"Ahem," Dusk coughed politely. Buffy brought herself back to reality.

"Huh? Oh hi." She smiled sheepishly. Dusk smiled amused.

"A good date, then?" he asked wryly. Buffy swooned and twirled before draping herself against Dusk, staring up at him adoringly.

"I SO owe you, big brother." Smiling, she batted her eyes and dotted a quick kiss against his cheek. Dusk smirked and gave her a playful shove away from him.

"Away with you, you lovesick brat." Grinning, he shook his head. "Did Spike give you –" He stopped as Buffy handed him a tape from her jacket. Dusk smiled. "Cool." He investigated the tape carefully. "He used a metal tape, I'm honored." Chuckling, he it into his jacket.

Quizzically, he looked at Buffy. "When did he have time to make this?" Buffy grinned naughtily.

"Let's just say, thank GOD for hands-free one-touch recording." She continued to smile wickedly. Dusk shook his head.

"Don't tell."

"Don't ask," she replied smirking. "Oh and he said he'll bring the scotch by tomorrow night. He claims he needs some time to 'grieve' apparently." She chuckled and nodded toward the stairs. "Is she asleep?" Dusk followed her gaze.

"Yeah, I checked to make sure everything was secure there. You know, just in case." He shrugged.

"Meet Dusk, the overprotective babysitter." Buffy gave him a wry look. Dusk snorted.

"In Sunnydale, there's no such thing as 'overprotective'," he gestured to Buffy, "You, of all people, should know that." Buffy gave him a strained look.

"Alec, I'm riding a very nice hormonal high. I had a great night, do NOT even begin to attempt to get me all serious or you WILL be hurt. Clear?" Dusk laughed quietly.

"Quite clear," Dusk collected his coat, "It's late and I'm beat. I'm going to see if dad needs any help closing shop." Dusk checked his watch. "It's only quarter to eleven and dad doesn't close up for another fifteen minutes, so I'll just get there in time." Buffy smiled and nodded fervently.

"Well done, the responsible offspring." Dusk graced her with a patient look; Buffy smiled, kissed his cheek and trudged up the stairs.

"Good night, Alec! Thanks again," Buffy called out. Dusk listened as she padded to her room and closed the door. Chuckling, Dusk opened the door.

"Kids," he said smirking as he closed the door quietly behind him.

He had made it three blocks when he felt it, a presence, just on the edge of his awareness. Dusk stopped and turned, scanning the gloom of Sunnydale at night. There was nothing he could see, and yet…

"It's late and I'm bloody knackered. Show yourself," he issued out into the night. From his left, a rich laughter reached his ears.

"Come now, young man, surely you possess more congenial manners than that," said a voice wrapped in power and sheer confidence, heavily laced with an eastern European accent. Dusk gave it a three-count, before turning.

The vampire was tall, but not overly so, with aristocratic features and a fine boned face, piercing blue eyes and dark brown hair. He had an air about him of utter grace and self-assurance. Something that sent warning bells all through Dusk's mind. This was not your average fang-banger, this was a vampire that was confident in his own abilities, and had no problem proving them. The vampire bowed cordially.

"Permit me to introduce myself." He curled his lips into a cordial smile and dipped into a sweeping bow. "I am Dracula."


	5. Chapter 4 Dracula

The minutes stretched on into uncomfortable silence. Alec had heard of him of course, but from what Buffy had told him, she had staked him...twice. Dracula, for his part, stood waiting patiently for Alec to reply. The young man cleared his throat. 

"Vlad, the dragon prince. Warlord of Romania. Defended his country against the Turks and, recently, was staked twice by my sister," Alec recited simply, with perhaps a hint of challenge. Dracula laughed a low rolling laugh.

"Indeed, the Slayer, Buffy. I had gravely underestimated her and paid the price for it." He smiled slightly. "She is fierce and lives up every bit to her reputation.I daresay that I should prefer not to engage her in mortal combat again. I doubt I would be so fortunate twice in a row." Alec scoffed.

"She's formidable," the young man commented. Dracula smiled appreciatively.

"Yes. This is so. But then, so are you, my young friend," the vampire replied as he pulled his lips back into an expression of predatory delight. Dracula slowly advanced on Alec. Alec winced as he felt pressure begin to build in his head, like someone trying to pry their fingers into his brain and open it like an oyster. Alec snarled and focused, fighting off the invasion. The pain doubled without warning. Dracula smiled.

"Ahhh, I sense much fear in you. Fear that you are not strong enough to protect your loved ones; your sister, your father and especially the girl—"

With a scream of unhinged fury, Alec attacked.

Alec's eyes flashed as inky darkness filled the pupils and spilled over into the whites, soon his eyes were nothing more than two pools of swirling darkness. Dracula had a chance to hiss in surprise before tendrils of darkness, honed to a razor tip lashed out of Alec's hands and skewered the place the vampire had occupied not a half second before.

Dracula snarled like an animal as he dodged, flipped and wove, attempting to escape the onslaught of blackness.

"Foolish half-breed! You understand nothing!" Dracula spat then closed his eyes and spoke a few words in Romanian. With a flash there were not one but eight images of Dracula circling the young man, smiling tauntingly.

Alec, his eyes filled with a blackness that seemed to trickle down his face like tears, spun this way and that, teeth clenched. From between each tooth, darkness leaked out of his mouth like blood.

Dracula laughed, "Your power is nothing, young man. I could snuff the light from your life like _that!_" Eight Dracula's snapped their clawed fingers. "Or perhaps I could put those you love on sharpened stakes, the ultimate irony, as I did to the sultan's men over six centuries ago," Dracula continued to taunt the young man, then smiled evilly. "Or perhaps, I could show the young girl you treasure so how I truly earned the title 'The Impaler'."

The vampire then got a good look at the young man's face and realized he had gone too far. After that, it was too late to realize anything.

With a low, almost sub-harmonic howl, Alec threw his head back and eight spikes of darkness shot out from his body in perfect unison, skewering each of the Dracula images. All vanished save one that screamed in pain as he was run through and hoisted high into the air before being slammed down into a metal dumpster.

Dracula groaned and then gasped as Alec was suddenly right there. A shadowy hand lashed out and caught the vampire by the throat and lifted him up clear from his feet. Alec's face was a swarm of roiling blackness, no trace of humanity to be seen in his now bone white features. Dracula nearly blanched in horror at the sight.

"What ARE you?" the vampire cried out.

"I am the dark," Alec rasped in a voice that sounded like it came from the bottom of cold stone tomb, hollow and empty. "Die now." The young man began to squeeze the vampire's throat. Cracking sounds began to fill the air and in a last desperate attempt, Dracula forced words to come from his mouth.

"Destroy me…and you doom all that you love and hold dear," he choked out.

A flicker of something human crossed Alec's inhuman features and he released the vampire, letting him tumble unceremoniously onto the concrete. The multitude tentacles of darkness evaporated as Alec's eyes drained from all black to their normal shade, his face once again that of a young man.

"What do you mean?" Alec demanded. The Count rubbed his throat gingerly and got to his feet.

"I came to Sunnydale, because I had felt a deep disturbance emanating from this area."

Alec shrugged, "The pull of the Hellmouth, it's been here for years. Why would you suddenly be concerned with it?" Dracula looked him dead in the eye.

"Because it is afraid."

Alec froze. "What do you mean 'IT'S' afraid? How can 'it' be afraid? It isn't sentient." Dracula held up a finger.

"You are mistaken, my young friend. Have you never wondered how such a place came about? How so much dark power became focused? There is something under the ground in California. Something…deathless … greater than vampire, man, or demon. And it is afraid. It is afraid of the Summers' women." Dracula concluded. Alec eyed him warily.

"Not that I put an ounce of stock into what you're saying, but why is the Hellmouth afraid of Buffy?" Alec asked him.

Dracula gave him a condescending look before explaining, "Buffy has proven herself the champion of right and light far beyond any who came before her. She has grown powerful; her body, her blood, her very soul, all these thing surge and roll with this power. She herself has already utilized it once, using it to defeat the abomination you called 'Adam', I learned of this when I supped from her veins."

Dracula's eyes gleamed with avarice. "She stands on the threshold of a massive metamorphosis. She stands ready to transcend all death and become immortal. The Hellmouth fears this greatly, for it too stands on the threshold of transformation. Only one of them, however, shall live to see it through to its conclusion." His eyes shifted from avarice to calculating.

"And her sister, the one called Dawn, is the key." A low, wet growl emanated from deep in Alec's chest, where the grave voice had come from. Alec's hands tightened into fists, his knuckles white as darkness began to leak from between his fingers. Dracula's eyes widened as power began to crackle around Alec again. He raised a hand imploringly.

"Hear me out! I swear that I seek no harm upon either woman! I swear it on the clan Dracul!" Alec calmed down slightly at the Count's vehemence and the already coalescing darkness fell away.

"Keep talking," Alec bit out. Dracula, much relieved, lowered a hand.

"I think it better if we spoke with Buffy as well as her watcher, your father Rupert Giles, present. He will be able to validate my claims." Dracula reached out, handing Alec a card. "Meet me at this place, with Buffy and Mr. Giles." A small mocking smile graced his lips. "I trust you will have no reason to fear for your safety. Between you and the Slayer, I do not believe my destruction would be difficult." Alec took the card tentatively as Dracula turned to leave.

"Give me one good reason why I should believe any of this," Alec grumbled. Dracula stopped and turned, favoring him with another condescending smile.

"Because, my young friend, you know it is true. You have felt a connection to the girl Dawn that you cannot explain, yet cannot control or deny. It haunts you, granting you no peace, rebelling against all sense."

Alec paled and his eyes went wide as the counts words hit home.

Dracula laughed at the sight. "Come tomorrow, and you will have answers." Then with a great bound, Dracula's body lifted high into the air and flew from sight. Alec looked high into the sky, before looking back down at the card.

THE BRONZE ROOFTOP

MIDNIGHT

-D

Buffy woke up suddenly, unsure what had awakened her. She sat up ramrod straight in her bed and scanned the darkness of her room. Her eyes saw nothing, but her slayer sense screamed at her that she was not alone anymore. Her hand reached out to flick on the light…and she nearly screamed as hand came down hard to grip her wrist out of the darkness.

Combat reflexes took over and Buffy lashed out with a fist, only to find nothing there but shadows. She kicked at the place where a person must have been, only to hit thick darkness. The hand was joined by another, gentle this time, which reached out to wrap tenderly around her shoulders as the first hand released its grip on her wrist to become a warm hand holding hers, entwining long fingers with her own. Buffy understood.

Alec formed out of the dark, eyes draining back to normal to reveal a deep, sorrowful gaze. He squeezed Buffy tightly. Buffy returned the hug, very confused and VERY troubled by the look in her brothers eyes.

"Alec?" she whispered. "Are you all right? You shouldn't shadow-step, it's not safe," Buffy told her brother. Alec had manifested the ability to literally BECOME darkness and cross distances like that…but at great personal discomfort and risk.

"Why didn't you tell me?" his voice rasped. "Why didn't you tell me the truth?" He pleaded. Buffy's dread became a solid block of ice in her chest.

"Alec I don't—" She started.

"Dawn isn't human, is she?" His voice was warm in her ear but ragged and raw. Buffy's mouth sagged open. (He knows!) She closed and opened her mouth again to deny it. But the words wouldn't come, and she sighed in defeat. Kissing him on the head gently, she pulled away.

"How did you know?" she whispered quietly, not meeting his gaze. Alec stood and paced across the bedroom floor.

"I met an old friend of yours. Dracula." Buffy's head shot up like a rocket, her eyes wide in a mixture of fear and disbelief.

"That's not possible, I staked him…TWICE!" She cried out. "There's no way he'd be dumb enough to show his pointy toothed face again." Alec just looked at her and she immediately fell silent.

"Get dressed and meet me at my father's. We have a lot to discuss." Without looking back at her, Alec stepped into the shadowy corner of her room and the darkness reached out to take him.

"Alec! Don't!" Buffy cried out, appalled at how reckless he was being in his anguish. Alec simply looked back at her with those despairing eyes as the darkness consumed him and took him away from her. He was gone, and she was alone.

"…So Dracula wants us to meet him there tomorrow night," Alec finished recounting his story to his father and Buffy. They were in Giles' living room. Both of them wore very troubled expressions as if they couldn't, or didn't want to believe, the Count's words. Giles was the first to speak.

"He's not lying," he said simply. Two pairs of shocked eyes turned to meet the Watcher's gaze.

Giles sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I've often theorized about the Hellmouth possibly being a sentient entity. And looking back on the past four and a half years, I'm inclined to believe that this is so." He turned his eyes to Buffy. "And if the Hellmouth is sentient, then you will have to fight it, Buffy, when the times comes."

Buffy looked pale. Fighting vampires was one thing, fighting demons another, but attempting to fight an evil as old as mankind itself seemed impossible. Giles continued.

"We did something, Buffy, something was…unleashed within you, when we invoked the enjoining spell and contacted the first slayer. I'm not sure what but you are changing or soon will be. Can you tell me what it was like, that final confrontation with Adam?" Buffy did her best to shake off the fear she felt and replied.

"I don't remember very much, it was…overpowering. Like my body wasn't mine anymore but a whole army. It was like my body didn't stop at my skin but stretched out past myself. And everything was under my control. I was aware of all that I was and everything that was around me, because it was a part of me." She looked up into Giles' face. "Giles, what does this mean? What's going to happen to me? How can I fight the Hellmouth?" She felt panic rising up in her throat to choke her.

"I don't know, Buffy, but I think we should meet with Count Dracula and learn what we may from him," Giles replied.

Alec cleared his throat and their attention shifted to him.

"All right, now which one of you is going to explain to me about Dawn?" He demanded quietly. Buffy and Giles exchanged looks and began to tell him what they knew. About the monks and her not really being Buffy's sister, but some great force of light called The Key and how Dawn didn't have a clue about any of it. Alec took it all in impassively. After a while, the young man spoke.

"Dracula said that she was the Key, and that the Hellmouth was afraid of both of you, not just you, Buffy. If Dawn has no idea who or what she is, she couldn't possibly tap the power that she carries. If that's the case, why would the Hellmouth fear her?"

Giles shook his head. "I truly don't know, Alec, but perhaps Dracula does." Sighing, he got to his feet. "However, I don't understand why he would be telling us all this unless he stands to gain from it."

Buffy shrugged. "He knows either one of us can kick his ass. My guess is that he's more afraid of the Hellmouth." Alec shook his head.

"No. No, Dracula doesn't fear us," Alec replied. He looked up at the two of them and added, "or the Hellmouth for that matter, but he is concerned about how this plays out. I think he may have something to gain by seeing the Hellmouth destroyed, but I think it more likely he has something to lose if it isn't." Giles nodded thoughtfully as he paced the room.

"That sounds logical. We'll have to see come tomorrow night."

"Question," Buffy chimed in, "Should Dawn be present at this meeting? If it's this important and it concerns her so much, she may need to be in on it." Giles considered before shaking his head.

"No, at this point we know so little about what's happening. The less she knows, the safer she'll be," Giles answered. Alec snorted quietly at this but didn't disagree.

"What about the others?" he chimed in, "Willow, Xander, Anya and Spike?" he asked. Giles nodded slowly.

"We've already seen what happens when secrets are kept within the group," he gave Buffy a long look. Buffy returned it unwaveringly. Alec decided not to ask and his father continued. "We should alert everyone; Dawn being the only exception."

Giles turned his head to regard them both, "We've kept them in the dark this long because we did not want them treating Dawn any differently than if she actually were Buffy's younger sister. However, given the direness of the situation, I think the time for such sensibilities has passed." Giles rested his eyes on the Slayer. Buffy exhaled hard. This wasn't going to be easy to break to the rest of the gang.

"What about me?" Alec asked, "Is it necessary for me to come clean as well?" Buffy jumped in.

"No. No it's not, Alec, this isn't about you, it's about me and Dawn. You should tell the others when you're ready, not because you've been forced into it." Buffy told him fervently as she took his hand in hers. Alec gave her hand a long squeeze in gratitude.

"Thank you," he replied quietly. She smiled slightly at him before releasing his hand and turning her attention back to Giles.

"Okay, Round Robin tomorrow night, before we meet with Dracula. I'll give everyone a call to let them know." Buffy got to her feet. "We'll all meet here before the meeting at the bronze tomorrow night." Giles nodded.

"All right," Giles answered. Buffy and Alec turned to leave when suddenly Buffy froze, a confused and distant look on her face. Alec stopped to peer at her concerned.

"Sis? You all right?" He asked her. Buffy snapped out of it.

"Yeah I'm fine, just…for a second there I felt," The slayer laughed a little embarrassed. "Forget it, I just need a nap." Giles looked worried.

"You're sure, Buffy?" Giles asked gravely. Buffy hesitated for a moment, frowning before replying.

"Yeah, sure. Really I'm fine. See you tomorrow, Giles." Giles relented.

"Yes. See you then," Giles reassured her. Before leaving, Alec turned to regard his father questioningly.

"'Round robin?' " He inquired. Giles smiled slightly.

"It's a long story. I'll regale it to you some other time," The watcher told his son. Alec chuckled quietly and after giving his father an affectionate pat on the back, he turned and followed Buffy out of the house. Giles, casting a worried look at the quickly retreating pair and slowly closed the door.

"So what do we do now?" a voice called from behind him. Resting his head on the door, Giles didn't turn as he addressed the speaker.

"If Dracula is here, then things truly have become dire. I cannot believe that Dawn's and my son's arrival is a coincidence. Not now with Dracula returning so quickly after Buffy's experience with the First Slayer." Giles turned to examine the other man. "I believe something is coming. Something terrible. Something we've never faced before." The other man nodded, folding his hands into his long dark coat.

"Between Cordelia's visions and this, I'd say you're right," the other man said. "But that doesn't answer my question. What do we do now?"

"We wait, Angel," Giles quietly addressed the vampire before him, "and pray."


	6. Chapter 5 Heroes and Rogues

"So that's the situation." 

Buffy finished her story to the collective audience consisting of herself, Alec, Giles, Spike, Xander, Willow, and Anya. They had all assembled in the back room of the magic shop, which was closed for the morning. When the story had started out, most of them (with the exception of Alec and Giles) had expressions of confidence. They'd fought the Hellmouth before and they could do it again, but as Buffy's tale grew steadily bleak, so did their expressions.

It was Xander who finally spoke. "Dawn? Dawn is the Key of Power?" he asked incredulously, "Your Dawn, the Dawn that pitches a fit if we don't let her watch Dawson's Creek?" he exhaled hard.

Buffy nodded, smiling slightly. "Good disguise, isn't it?" She replied.

Anya piped in. "Well, I think it's absolutely brilliant to disguise the Key of Power as an obnoxious pubescent child," she said with her usual tartness. Alec caught himself shooting her a nasty look, which she chose to ignore.

Willow shook her head. "I just can't believe that I missed it. Me, the good witch of the Scooby gang," she lamented, looking downcast until Alec put a hand on her shoulder supportively.

"Chances are that whoever these monks are or were, they put enough shields on her that she'd be impossible to detect. For her protection." Alec comforted his lover before turning to Buffy. "If Dawn is meant to go head to head with the Hellmouth that means she'd have protection against all kinds of magical scrying." Buffy nodded her agreement as Alec turned back to Willow. "Dawn's protected from the Hellmouth's minions detecting her. Don't feel bad that she didn't register sweetie," Alec assured her. Willow smiled and rested her cheek against his hand and he stroked her face with his thumb, gently dissipating her worries.

Giles cleared his throat before simply stating, "I think it would be best if we do not treat her any differently than we have been."

Anya shrugged. "I have no problem with that. She's small and makes loud noises."

Spike snorted. "Yeah? I'm willing to bet you do too pet, when it's with Xander and closed doors are involved," he quipped, ignoring Xander's look of shocked outrage.

Anya considered the question. "It depends," she answered thoughtfully, "like last night he did this thing with his—"

"Anya!" Xander cried out before laughing nervously, "Let's get back to the subject at hand." Anya shrugged casually snatched up Xander's hand squeezing it in a gesture that might have been equal parts affection and impatience. Spike and Alec exchanged wry looks.

"Xander and Anya's sex life aside, we need to make a plan," Buffy told them all with a grin

Giles smiled slightly. "Buffy wishes to make a plan? The end of the world must truly be upon us," he cracked. There was a round of laughter from the group as Alec clapped his father on the back.

"My father made a joke. That's not much further down on the dark omens list," Alec added. Chuckling, he gave his fathers shoulder a reassuring squeeze before turning back to the group. "Buffy's right, we need a plan. But first," he got to his feet to address each one of them in turn, "this is going to be unlike anything any of us has gone up against before. This isn't slaying vampires or killing demons: this is entering the depths of the earth to do battle with evil incarnate. So if anyone wants out or just is afraid that this is too big or too bad, say so now, and you'll be released with no strikes against you. But speak now, because after tonight, there's no going back," he finished and waited patiently.

Xander spoke first, slowly rising to his feet. "Dusk, you haven't been around very long, but you've been a pretty good guy, so I trust your gut feeling on this. But the gang has been through some pretty dark times and come out in one piece," Xander told the other man with a shrug. "If Buffy's going up against the Hellmouth, I'm going with her." Xander walked over to Buffy's chair, showing himself firmly behind her.

Willow got up and spoke next. "Darn tootin'! I've got three people I love going down into that pit, and I am not about to let them go in without my help. I'm in!" she exclaimed with only a hint of tremulous bravado. She smiled at Alec who returned her look of love warmly as she came to stand behind Buffy as well.

Anya rose next.

"When you fought that icky mayor person, I thought it was suicide, but this I KNOW is suicide." She sighed in defeat. "But what am I going to do, get old and die instead, with nothing but funny-smelling cats and cross-stitch to keep me company? Count me in too." Anya got up and stood beside Xander holding his hand tightly. "Besides old people don't have very good sex." She looked at Giles. "No offense."

Xander rolled his eyes and kissed her forehead as Giles turned red and cleared his throat.

"I make no guarantees about our chances, but four years ago I gained a daughter," he smiled at Buffy, "and four months ago, a son." He turned his gaze to Alec. "What kind of father would I be allowing my children to face such peril without my aid?" He walked over to the pair and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "It will be an honor to fight beside you." Buffy's eyes watered and Alec clasped his father's arm tightly, too moved to speak. Releasing his father's arm, he shifted his gaze to Spike who was the only one to remain sitting. He held his hand out to the blond vampire.

After several silent moments, Spike spoke. "Hell, I need to kill something anyhow, and it'd be nice to be known as 'Spike: the guy who made the Hellmouth soil its demonic knickers'." He grinned and slapped Alec's outstretched hand hard. "Screw it, let's do some damage." he came over to stand behind the slayer. "Besides, I'm not about to let the best piece of ass I've ever encountered get herself killed."

Buffy laughed slightly through her tears, she was touched deeply by this display of her friends' loyalty. She socked Spike on the arm.

"You're a creep," she sniffled.

Spike smiled wryly. "Yeah, but I'm a tremendously good lay."

Buffy laughed and wrapped her arms around him. "Just hold me, you big jerk," she whispered softly, squeezing him tightly. Spike just held her.

Alec smiled and looked around. "I guess that's everyone."

Giles cleared his throat and gestured to door on the other side of the room. "Not quite," he informed them.

Buffy released Spike and wiped the tears from her eyes and turned. "Giles, what're you talking abo—" Her voice trailed off as the door opened and a man stepped inside.

There was a collective exclamation of surprise from the group and a low growl from Spike as he placed a possessive arm back around the slayer; she was too stunned to notice.

"Angel?" she whispered. Angel nodded and remained where he was.

"We've had our differences, Buffy, but this is more important than any of that."

Buffy patted Spike's arm and he reluctantly released her as she slowly walked towards her ex-lover.

Angel continued, "What's happening is very real and serious, and I want to help." He looked down at the floor.

"How?" Buffy managed to whisper.

Angel met her glance evenly. "Cordelia had a vision about a great battle; darkness and light rising." He shrugged. "Sounded like something serious was going down. The Powers That Be mentioned something like this happening someday. I guess this is it," Angel finished and regarded her.

Buffy spun on Giles. "When? When did he get here?" she demanded.

Giles met her glare calmly. "Last night before you and Alec arrived," he replied simply. "We didn't want to reveal his presence until we were sure about which course of action to take." Giles looked down and Buffy spun to glare at Angel.

"So that was you I felt last night," Buffy exclaimed. Spike's face darkened at this and Alec put a hand on his shoulder to restrain him.

Angel shrugged. "I don't know, but it might have been."

Buffy went right up to him and without warning, she slammed a right hook across his chin. He stumbled back even as Buffy's hand howled in protest. The display caused Spike to grin.

"Yeah-hah," he laughed before Alec shushed him.

Angel regained his composure and straightened up. "I see. That's how it's going to be then." He sighed and turned to leave.

Buffy grabbed his arm and spun him around hard. "That was for trying to cover up the fact that you were here." Her face was tear-streaked and her lower lip trembled. "And this is for coming here thinking I needed your help."

Angel braced for another blow, but instead, Buffy threw herself against him, hugging him so tightly that if he had had breath it would have killed him. Angel gently held her. Spike cursed quietly.

"Thank you," Buffy whispered brokenly, tears streaming freely from her face.

Angel held her a while longer before letting her down. She wiped the new tears from her face and turned to the group. They were regarding the pair with a myriad of expressions. She shuffled her feet uncomfortable before looking up.

"Okay, is THAT everyone?" She smiled slightly. "We're not going to have any other blasts from the past show up, are we?"

Giles smiled. "No, that about does it." He chuckled before Angel broke in.

"No, it doesn't," Angel said, turning to the rest of the group. "May I have a minute to talk with Buffy alone please?" Spike stepped forward glaring hard at Angel and was about to speak when Alec laid a hand on his shoulder. Spike turned to glare at him.

"She'll be all right, mate. Come on, let's go look at weapons," Alec said.

Spike turned back to stake Angel with a lethal glare before stalking out of the room, nearly bowling over Xander and Anya in the process. One by one, the rest of them filed out of the room quietly. Alec was the last to leave, turning to give Buffy a concerned look. She met his gaze and nodded, signaling that she'd be fine. Alec nodded and closed the door. She turned to address Angel.

"Okay, what is it?" She asked him.

Angel gripped her shoulders and studied her intently with those dark eyes of his as if trying to gaze into her soul. "Someone else is here. Someone you probably won't be all that happy to see."

Buffy frowned and then her eyes widened in comprehension. She stared wordlessly at Angel.

"You didn't," she breathed.

Angel shook his head. "We need all the help we can get." He turned and addressing the darkened doorway said, "Come on out."

There was movement as a woman stepped from the shadows. She tried to smile at Buffy.

"Hiya, B. Long time, no see."

Buffy's eyes narrowed to vicious slits. "Faith," she bit out like a curse.

For a long while, the two slayers regarded each other. Buffy noticed changes in the rogue slayer. Her hair was cut short and a long scar starting from her left eyebrow and cutting down her eye to end raggedly just below her cheekbone marred her face. The eye that was once brown was now a very pale blue. Faith noticed the look and tried to smile.

"You like it?" She absentmindedly stroked the scar. "Some prison betty tried to make me her bitch. No candy or flowers even."

Buffy was still glaring daggers. "Let me guess: You killed her, right? I mean, hey, that's what you're good at isn't it, Faith? Ending lives? Stealing lives?" Buffy snarled at her. Faith flinched like she'd been hit and looked down. Angel reached down to grab Buffy's shoulders.

"Buffy – "

Buffy cut him off angrily, shaking off his grasp. "How dare you! How dare you bring HER here now!" She stepped back, jabbing a condemning finger at Angel. "You don't know what she is! You could never know what she's done to me! What she put me through!" She turned a hateful glance to Faith. "What's the matter, Faith? Heard the end of the world was coming and thought you'd come down and help speed it along? Maybe kill a few innocent people just for old time's sake?"

"No," Faith responded quietly, not looking up.

Buffy turned back to regard Angel. "What gives you the right –"

Angel's self-control snapped. "Buffy, shut up!" The vampire snarled.

Buffy, in shock, did in fact shut up. Angel continued crushing her under his gaze.

"Whatever is happening here is real evil, Buffy. It's bigger than any evil you've ever faced. Bigger than the Judge, bigger than the mayor, bigger than Faith and bigger than me." His eyes turned cold. "And bigger than your new boyfriend, Spike." The color in Buffy's face drained like water and her whole body shuddered as Angel's words continued to hammer her. "Spike has killed more people than Faith's ever met. And yet you and he are now star-crossed lovers? Why don't you ask him sometime, Buffy? Ask him about the women he had crucified with railroad spikes as they begged for their lives! Ask him about two dead slayers!"

"Shut up!" Buffy screamed at him, "shut up, shut up, shut up!" She placed her hands over her ears. "I don't want to hear it! I don't care anymore! I hate you! I hate both of you!"

Choking back sobs, she ran from the room. Bursting into the store, she nearly knocked Alec over as she opened the door and slammed it shut behind her. Without a backwards glance, she raced out into the noontime sunlight.

Spike ran up to the door and opened it to follow. A ray of sunlight caught him across the arm and as flames burst, he yowled in pain. Alec tackled him to the ground, smothering the flame and getting him out of the daylight. The smell of burnt skin seeped into the room. Giles and Xander helped them to their feet.

Angel sighed. "That could have gone better," He mused, placing a hand on Faith's shoulder. "Come on, let's go make introductions."

She mutely followed.


	7. Chapter 6 War Council

Buffy returned to the Magic Box around sundown. Entering the backroom unnoticed, she stopped dead when she saw Faith and Angel amongst the rest of the group, discussing strategy. For a moment, she stared, dumbstruck.

"How can you do this?" Buffy cried out. Everyone dropped what they were doing to regard her in surprise. "My God! Have you all forgotten what she's done to us?" She pointed an accusatory finger to Faith. "Have you all forgotten that she's a murderer, and evil, and sick, and psychotic?" She turned her gaze to Willow, who was sitting on Alec's lap. "How she kidnapped Willow?" She paused before turning to Xander. "And you! You were used, and discarded, and then she tried to kill you. Oh, and let's not forget ANGELUS here." She turned her hateful gaze on Angel, which made him flinch. It was the first time she had ever addressed him by that name. "How he murdered our friends, and tried to get the world sucked into Hell? So, what, now it's 'forgive and forget'?" Buffy scoffed before muttering, "I don't think so."

"Buffy," Xander called as he watched her turn to go. "Angel's paid for what he did, and he's paid back the debt several times over."

Buffy spun around, her mouth sagging open. Xander was _defending_ Angel?

"He saved all our lives at graduation," Xander continued, "and from what Oz told us, when he got back from L.A., Angel's done his best over there to make amends. If what's coming is as bad as everyone seems to think it is, then we're going to need his help." Xander grinned wryly as Willow, Buffy, and Angel all gaped at him. "Besides, Angel is always welcome to help in a nice non-key capacity." He smiled at Angel, and the vampire shook his head with a light chuckle.

"Thanks, Harris," Angel replied. "I appreciate it."

"So, you're all 'buddy buddy' with Angel now, huh?" Buffy asked with a scoff. "Now I _know_ the end of the world is coming. So, what about Faith? Huh, Xander? Does she get into your 'fine and dandy' book as well? What's her excuse?"

Xander's smile faded, and the rest of the group exchanged worried looks. They'd never heard Buffy talk like this. It took Xander several moments, before he could find his voice once more.

"Well, I mean, … Spike's been trying to kill us a lot longer than Faith has, and he's welcome to help, so I figured – " That was as far as he got before Buffy walked over, and slapped him hard across the face.

The sound was like a gunshot as Xander was spun around, and fell hard against the table, a large red handprint blazoned against his face.

"Buffy!" Willow cried out in shock, as she leapt to her feet.

Even Spike looked stunned, as he cautiously stood. "Hey, come on, luv. That wasn't necessary. I mean, he's right," he offered with a slight grin. He had hoped to ease her anger as he reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, but she knocked it aside.

"Don't touch me, got it?" Buffy growled. She carefully moved back up the stairs toward the exit. Anya was tending to Xander; his cheek was already swelling up, red and ugly. For an instant, Buffy looked horrified, but her eyes hardened again, and she gestured to her friends. "The way I see it? Faith is evil, and anyone who helps her? Well, they're not much better. I don't want your help. I don't need your help. I'm going to deal with the Hellmouth like a slayer should." She opened the door. "By myself!" she screamed at them, and slammed the door shut behind her.

There was a collective flinch from the group at the sound, and a stunned silence followed, with the exception of Anya trying to comfort Xander.

"Anyone want to go after her?" Alec asked quietly after a long quiet.

"Yeah, she's my girlfriend… I think. Guess it should be me," Spike commented glumly.

"Normally, Spike, I'd agree," spoke Giles, as he removed his glasses, and began to clean them. "But I don't think it would be a good idea, right now, given the fragile state of mind she's in." Spike started to protest, but Giles raised a finger to silence him. "Spike, she struck Xander. I've never seen her so incensed. She's clearly not thinking rationally." Giles turned to his son. "Alec, you seem to be the closest to her without having such an extensive past attached. Would you…?" Alec held up a hand to signal that Giles didn't need to finish his question.

"I'm on it," Alec assured his father, as he rose to leave.

"Be careful," Willow muttered with a hint of caution in the tone of her voice. "I've… I've never seen her like this. Not even after the Master killed her, and she was acting like a complete bitca."

"No worries, I'll see what I can do." Alec smiled slightly and kissed her lips gently in reassurance. Willow's lip trembled lightly. The sight of her friend so unhinged was beginning to take its toll. Alec gathered her up in a tight hug. "Don't worry, baby. She'll be okay," he whispered as he released her.

Willow sniffled, and nodded tearfully, before walking over to where Anya and Faith were tending to Xander.

"Make her understand, mate," Spike pleaded as he placed a hand on Alec's arm. "She can't fight this thing on her own. She'll get herself killed." His eyes burned with concern for his lover.

"I'll do my best, man." Alec placed a firm hand on Spike's shoulder, offering him a smile of assurance. Spike nodded, and his hand fell, returning to his side.

Casting another look at the group, Alec swept out of the room, closing the door gently behind him.

He found her sitting on a swing in a playground, sobbing pitifully. He waited for her to acknowledge his presence. Wiping her eyes angrily, she glared at him with all the hatred she could muster through her tears.

"I know what you're going to say. 'How could you be such a bitch? What are you thinking? You can't fight the Hellmouth by yourself!'." She sniffled, and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Well, I can, and I will, and I don't need you, or Xander, or Willow, or Giles, or Spike, or Angel, or anyone else's help to do it!"

Alec regarded her calmly, leaning against the pole of the swing set with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Well?!? Say something, you… you demonic freak!" She snarled. "You half-breed, say something!" She rose to her feet, ignoring the swing as it bounced off the back of her legs, and she stalked over to him. "Say something, or so help me...!" She reared her hand back to hit him, but her arm was easily caught by Alec, and he held her tightly.

She began to curse and scream as she struck him. "Let me go! I hate you! I hate all of you! How could you betray me like this? Faith is evil! Why can't any of you see that? You don't know what she did to me! Let me GO!" She pummeled futilely against his chest.

Finally her resolve broke, and the guilt and shame of what she had done washed over her. Her knees grew weak as the sobs continued, making her seem nothing more than a scared and hurt little girl in his arms. Alec gently supported her, while whispering soothing words to her. She poured all her hate, her fear, and rage into him, and he accepted it stoically. He did not judge her, but merely offered quiet love and support. As the sobs lessened, and soon stopped, she hiccupped slightly, and regarded him with tearstained eyes.

"Oh God, what did I do? I hit Xander! I said awful things! You must all hate me!"

"No one hates you, Buffy," Alec said gently, hushing her worries. "Not me, not Xander, not anyone. We're just worried about you." He used a finger to tilt her chin up to look at him. "You're better than this. Better than unthinking hatred. Yes, Faith has sinned, against you especially, and that's not an easy thing to forgive, or forget. But she's here now, and she's willing to fight to atone for those sins. Just like Angel, and just like Spike." He smiled wryly. "Although, you try getting Spike to admit he's sorry for anything." The last comment made her smile slightly.

"Yeah, really," Buffy replied weakly. Alec smiled at her, then grew serious.

"We're all here for you Buffy, you have Xander, Willow, Angel, Spike, Anya, Faith, my father… and you have me," he kissed her forehead tenderly; Buffy closed her eyes and sighed, shuddering. Alec continued, "I can't speak for Faith, or Anya, because I don't know them well enough, but I know the rest of us love you dearly, and we're not going to let you go face this thing alone, you hear me?" Buffy nodded, sniffling. She started to say something, but Alec cut her off.

"You're welcome," he told the slayer as he smiled, and wrapped an arm around her.

"Come on. Dad's in full research mode, and Xander's going to go on a doughnut run… as soon as the swelling in his face goes down." Buffy laughed a little at that.

"Jelly doughnuts?" she asked hopefully.

Alec nodded. "Preferred pastry of Slayer and Watcher alike."

Buffy smiled, again.

"Well, … okay," she pointed a finger at him, mock serious, "but _only_ because there's going to be jelly doughnuts there." Alec laughed, and gathered her up in a tight hug.

"That's the law of the universe, fight immortal evil and you get all the jelly doughnuts you can eat."

Buffy smiled and rested against him.

"You're a good big brother," she whispered. Alec smiled, and bopped his forehead against hers, lightly and affectionately.

"Ouch," she sniffled mildly, before laughing gently.

"Come on, let's go, before Dad eats all the jellies when they arrive," he took her hand, and led her back to the magic shop.

The bell over the door rang, making all heads swivel towards it. Alec, and a significantly calmer looking Buffy, entered. Spike got up and walked over to her, put a hand on her shoulder, and gazed into her eyes, concerned.

"Are you all right, baby?" he asked. She nodded, and patted his hand.

"I'm good, and I'm sorry about the things I said," Buffy assured him. Spike waved it off.

"Yeah, well, I'll think of some way for you to make it up to me later," he replied cockily with a leering grin. She smiled, and he kissed her cheek before leading her to the table. The vampire sent a grateful look to Alec, who nodded in return as he followed the pair back to the table where their friends were anxiously waiting.

Buffy took a deep breath and spoke, "I had no right to say the things I did or to hit Xander." She turned an extremely apologetic look to her friend, who was seated at the table, still cradling an icepack to his face. "I'm really sorry, Xander. Tell you what, I'll spring for donuts." Xander continued to ignore her while nursing his jaw. "And pizza?" she added hopefully.

Xander still continued to regard her humorlessly.

"And ice cream?" he interjected.

Buffy sighed with relief and smiled. "Deal." She leaned down to gather her friend in a tight hug.

Xander flinched. "Ow! Cheek is still of the hurting."

Buffy gasped, and released him quickly.

"Ooo! Sorry!" She smiled apologetically at him, and then she turned her attention to Faith, who was seated across from Giles. The tension level in the room grew noticeably, and Willow - who was seated between the two slayers - cautiously got up and moved out of the line of fire to stand next to Alec. He wrapped an arm around her waist, and patted her reassuringly.

"Faith," Buffy began. "You've injured me in ways I really never thought could exist. You've tortured my friends, you've stolen my body, abused my loved ones, and nearly helped bring about the end of the world. This isn't stuff you just forgive."

Faith looked down, ashamed in the face of Buffy's accusations.

Buffy let the moment hang a while, before continuing. "But Angel is right, this is bigger than any of that, and if we're going to survive, it's going to be as a team."

Faith's head began to lift in hope and disbelief.

Buffy saw the look and held up a hand. "We are NOT friends, Faith. I don't like you, and I don't trust you… but that doesn't matter. What matters is that you're here, and you're willing to help. So, for the duration of the emergency only, you're on parole."

Faith began to smile in relief. The relief didn't last. Buffy leaned in close to her scarred face and bared her teeth in something that in no way could be mistaken for a smile.

"But if you screw up just _this_ much," Buffy growled as slowly she held up two fingers in front of Faith's face and slowly spaced them out indicating less than an inch, "and I am going to find a bigger knife, and a taller building. Are you hearing me crystal clear Faith? Are we "five by five"?" She demanded with a snarl as she finished the threat. Faith swallowed hard, and nodded, indicating that she did.

Buffy backed away a little, before sitting down next to Spike, who was regarding her with a mixture of shock and awe, while gently tugging at the collar of his shirt uncomfortably.

Xander spoke up, "Okay, so, since Buffy is buying, who wants what on their pizza?" Eight pairs of eyes turned to regard him, uncomprehending.

He shrugged. "What? I'm hungry."

Willow tentatively put up a hand.

"I'll have mushrooms please," she put forth meekly. The room dissolved into light laughter and smiles as the tension drained out of the room. Alec looked down at her, and made a face.

"Fungus, luv?"

She shrugged, and Giles smiled slightly.

"I'll make the calls," said the Watcher, but then stopped and added almost hopefully, "Someone is going for doughnuts, yes?" There was another round of quiet laughter. Alec grinned at his father's well known affection for the gooey treats.

"Jellies for all, dad."

Giles smiled in relief and went to go make the calls.

Six pizzas, and two dozen doughnuts later, the group discussed their options.

Giles spoke first.

"I think it's safe to say that this isn't going to be any kind of quick skirmish or single battle. This is going to be a protracted campaign. It is bigger than anything we've ever done and it will need a lot of preparation."

Xander raised a hand.

"How exactly does one 'prepare' to face primordial evil?" he asked sardonically.

"Carefully," Alec put in wryly. "Carefully and thoroughly."

"Hear, hear," Angel added.

Giles cleared his throat. "Precisely, and that being the case, I suggest we set forth a list of priorities. The first thing we'll need to do is, not surprisingly, research."

This promptly elicited groans from the table; save Angel, who had grown used to doing research during his tenure in L.A., and Alec and Willow, who both relished a little book worming.

Giles held a hand up for silence. "I've consulted most of my books regarding both the Hellmouth, and the Key, but I'm afraid I just don't have the proper tomes."

Faith quietly spoke up, "The mayor had a pretty good-sized collection of books." She turned to Willow for support. Willow bobbed her head emphatically in agreement, remembering her brief and wholly unwilling extended stay at the building.

"That's right! Maybe he'll have something on the Key! He certainly should have something regarding the Hellmouth," Willow replied as she looked back at Faith.

The darkhaired Slayer slowly nodded her head. "Yeah, he once told me he founded Sunnydale so that demons could feed here. It'd make sense he'd know a ton about the Hellmouth before doing so," she added, before turning to Buffy. "Is City Hall still up and running?"

Buffy regarded her coolly before catching herself and sighing. She tried desperately to beat down the rush of hatred that filled her.

"Yeah, although it's pretty vacant now. After the Mayor's little performance at graduation, a lot of people regard City Hall as sort of a haunted house." She shrugged. "I keep hearing plans of closing and tearing it down, but nobody seems to get around to it."

Faith smiled slightly, and turned back to address the grou. "Then I'll go down and get the books."

Spike snorted slightly. "What, you're just going to ask the non-existent secretary for the keys to the ex-demons office then? And I thought my slayer was the only one who couldn't keep a sane plan to save her life." He chortled.

Buffy swatted him upside the head. "Look who's talking, Mister 'let's put together a giant demonic Smurf and unleash him on a Cineplex.'"

Spike was about to retort when Alec cut in.

"I think it's safe to say that it's going to require both a little discretion and someone who knows enough about arcane lore to grab the right books." He got to his feet. "Either way, that means me. Faith and I will go to City Hall to get the books." He addressed Buffy, "We're going to need supplies too. Do you still have that commando friend of yours' address?"

Buffy frowned.

"Riley? No, he was recalled and put in Nevada. I have no idea how to get in contact with him," she told him.

Alec pursed his lips together and turned to Willow.

"Lover, can you hop online and find him? You'll want to check the national records database, subcategory armed forces; it'll have some pretty impressive firewalls so you may have to work a little magic to nudge it along." Alec turned to Giles. "Jenny told me she gave you a disk once containing a few techno pagan rituals?"

Giles frowned in thought, and then said, "Yes, but I'll have to go back to the house to get them."

Alec nodded, and turned back to the witch. "You feel like committing a felony, luv?" he asked her wryly.

She smiled, and bounded to her feet.

"My parents pay taxes so I think I'm entitled to raid the federal database," she replied.

Buffy interrupted, "So, once we get Riley's address, then what?"

Alec turned to her. "That's where Xander comes in."

Xander was talking to Anya. His ears perked up at hearing his name.

"Huh? What? Am I key guy again?" he asked with equal parts bewilderment and anticipation.

Alec regarded him inquiringly. "You still possess any of that army know-how?"

Xander smiled and nodded his head. "Aye-firmative. What'cha need? Rocket launcher? C-4? Heavy ordinance preferred by slayers everywhere," quipped Xander, waggling his eyebrows and earning a grin from Alec.

"Perhaps. I need something like a shotgun, but a little faster on the draw. Also, I need incendiary rounds, you know, like they have in flare guns. Anything spring to mind?" Alec asked.

Xander frowned as he thought about it. Maybe. That doesn't sound as easy as your generic rocket launcher, but I'll think of something," he assured the other man.

Alec nodded in satisfaction. "Good. Figure it out, and when you get a hold of Riley, ask him for a lot of them. Give him the Cliff Notes version of what's going on, and make sure he can get them out here in a hurry. Riley might be risking a court martial here, so stress how important this is, and ask nicely."

"Yes, sir," saluted Xander.

Alec nodded, and turned to Angel and Spike.

"Angel, Spike: head to Willy's. We need the word on the street as well. Buffy once told me that whenever there's serious evil in the ground sub-terraneanians tend to vacate. Find out if that's happened, and if so, exactly why. Also, we need to find as many entrances to the underground as we can - natural cave formations, service access tunnels, sewers, crypts. Everything. Maybe we can find an optimal approach for this thing," he told them.

Spike interjected with a frown, "Ah, excuse me, mate, but I'm not exactly popular down at Willy's anymore."

Alec arched an eyebrow. "Well, if you're afraid, I suppose you could always help Dad with research," he suggested mildly.

Spike's face darkened, and he leapt to his feet.

"Bloody hell! Bring it on!" cried the bleached vampire, and shook his fist in the air, earning chuckles of amusement, and a slap on the butt from Buffy.

"That's the spirit, honey," she joked wryly. Spike looked down at her with a grin.

Alec chuckled before turning to Giles.

"Dad, get Quentin on the horn, and find out what they can tell us. Stress the whole 'end of the world' angle," he told his father.

"Yeah, find out if they can send some sort of special ops team like they've been known to. Usually at the worst possible time," Buffy added, sending Faith a look. Faith averted her eyes, and studied an open book.

Giles cleared his throat.

"Yes." He checked his watch. "It's about midnight there, so I'll be waking the old man up." The elder Giles smiled with a hint of wickedness in his expression. "I don't think I have a problem with that. I'll call him from my house."

Alec nodded.

"All right then, that's the plan. Buffy, Dad, Willow, Xander: you go to Dad's house for hacking, phone calls, and heavy ordinance procurement. Angel, Spike: Willy's for information. Faith and I will go raid City Hall."

Anya spoke up, "What about me?"

Alec tightened his lips together in thought. "Anya, stay here and keep an eye on the store."

An idea struck him. "Willow, do you still have that glyph that demon gave you?" he asked.

Willow nodded and answered, "It's back at the dorm."

He turned to Buffy.

"Buffy-?" Alec began.

Buffy was already on her feet. "On it," she told him. "Willow, where is it?"

"Oh, it's in my jewelry box, next to the box of cond – " Willow stopped as her hand flew to her mouth, her face quickly coloring to match her hair. Spike gave the witch a cynical look. Buffy mirrored it, and grinned teasingly, before patting Willow on the shoulder.

"In the jewelry box. I got it, Wills."

Buffy turned to Anya.

"Do you think this demon guy is likely to help?"

Anya frowned.

"D'Hoffryn is pretty set in his ways." She exhaled slowly. "But I suppose I could go to all the trouble of asking him," she added with a huff.

Buffy nodded curtly and turned to Alec. "I'll have Giles drop me off at the dorms, then I'll run back here, and drop it off before heading back up to his place," she told her brother.

Alec nodded.

"Sounds good. So, we're all set then?" he asked. There were general sounds of assent from the table. Alec got his coat, and, for the first time, noticed the odd looks he was getting from everyone.

"What?" he finally asked.

Buffy spoke up. "When did you get all 'take charge with the delegating and the plan'?"

Alec stopped to regard her. "If you have a better idea, sis, I'm all ears," he stated simply.

She shook her head. "It's a good plan, it's just a side of you I haven't seen," Buffy commented as she leaned forward to kiss his cheek and then pinch it. "You're so cute when you're all take-charge macho man." She grinned as he rolled his eyes and shoved her gently away.

"Am-scray, time is moving and we are standing still," he said. Everyone got to their feet and filed out into the night. "Don't forget, Buffy, Dad. Midnight - the Bronze," Alec called after them.

"Will do!" Buffy yelled back as she, Willow, Xander, and Giles piled into the latter's new sporty red car. Angel and Spike headed in the opposite direction towards Angel's car, a black '67 Plymouth GTX with the top down.

"Good luck," Angel told Alec.

"You, too," Alec replied. He shook Angel's hand, and slapped Spike's palm before leveling a warning finger at the vampire.

"Remember: 'information' not 'body count', comprende?" Alec warned his friend. Spike growled good-naturedly and lit a cigarette.

"Bloody Hell, you're as bad as your sister," he said, grinning as he shook his head and followed Angel.

As they retreated, Alec could just make out the two vampires bickering. "A vampire with a convertible, you really are a professional sufferer, aren't you?" Spike mocked the elder vampire.

"Spike, don't start on my car, it's a good car. And get rid of the cigarette," Angel retorted. Alec heard Spike mutter something obscene before he and Angel piled into the car and headed off towards Willy's.

Chuckling, Alec turned to regard the only people remaining: Faith and Anya. He turned to Anya, who wore an unhappy expression on her face. Alec patted her shoulder sympathetically.

"Don't worry, he'll be back soon," he assured her, referring to Xander. She shook her head.

"It's not that. Willow just reminded me that I forgot to buy condoms," Anya lamented. "That means Xander and I can't have sex tonight."

Alec laughed. "We're going to be a tad too busy preventing the apocalypse for you and he to get some loving in."

Anya glared at him.

"That doesn't make me feel better," she snarled as she stalked back into the store.

Still laughing quietly, Alec turned to Faith.

"You ready to go?" He asked her.

Faith sighed long and hard before looking at him.

"Why did you volunteer to go with me? You know full well I could handle it by myself," she pointed out.

Alec shrugged. "Actually, it makes sense. You could use someone who knows the occult well enough to grab the right stuff. Besides, I figured you'd feel more comfortable traveling with someone who wasn't around when all this insanity involving you and the Mayor occurred," he told her. This made Faith grimace.

"Point," she conceded, though her gaze was still hard. "That still doesn't explain why," she added.

Alec turned to go. "We've all got things to atone for. Maybe I can help you along. You coming or not?" he called over his shoulder. Faith sighed, again, and followed.

"Hey, chief, it's a long walk from here to City Hall," Faith interjected. Alec favored her with a sardonic grin.

"Who said anything about walking?" he replied. He led her behind the shop where something was gleaming in the dark. Faith inhaled sharply as she saw it.

"Sweet!" she exclaimed as she gazed adoringly at the viciously sleek-looking black and red sports bike leaning against the wall. "This is a bad-ass machine," she commented appreciatively as she ran her fingers across the smooth curves of the bike, pushing a probing fingernail against the leather of the double saddle, which made Alec chuckle.

"Does this suit your fancy?" he asked her, smiling crookedly. She bit her lower lip and grinned, a glimmer of the old Faith shining through.

"Does it ever! Man, the feeling of this baby between my legs. Grrrr!" she exclaimed as she threw a leg over the saddle with a grin. Alec shook his head, laughing quietly, and mounted the bike, handing her a helmet. Faith dutifully strapped it on before placing both her hands on his shoulders.

"Let's ride, bad boy," she purred into his ear. Alec just snorted in amusement and secured his own helmet.

Kick-starting the bike, the engine roared to life, eliciting a squeal of delight from the slayer behind him. Gently easing the bike out of the alleyway, he gunned it and shot like a rocket down the street.

"Whoo-hoo-hoo!" Faith whooped as the bike turned gracefully around a corner. "God, I want this thing to bear my children!" she cried out in ecstasy.

Alec thought it best to change the subject.

"So, how long have you known Angel?" he asked.

Faith immediately calmed down, becoming morose.

"Since I first got here. I tried to kill him a couple of times, here and in L.A. For some reason, he's stuck by me. Helped me to do what was right," she told him.

"Yeah, what was that?" Alec asked, as he eased the bike around another turn.

"Turn myself in, and confess to multiple counts of homicide," Faith answered with a sigh. "I had a pretty high tab to pay to the world. I guess coming out here is my way of doing it."

Alec spared her a look over his shoulder. "So, how'd you get out of slam?" he asked.

Faith shrugged.

"Dunno. Today, I get hauled out of my cozy cell, and dumped before a parole board. Next thing you know, I'm out on the streets, and some guy called Gunn is picking me up from the slammer telling me Angel needs me down in Sunnydale. I owed Angel, so here I am." Faith sighed again. "I was probably safer in the slammer with Bertha the gnash hound gunning for me."

Alec chuckled. "Probably, but if you're serious about making amends, this is the way to do it."

Faith snorted. "Terrific. Another Jiminy Cricket conscience, do guys like you come in some sort of karmic six-pack, or what?"

Alec chuckled again, not offended in the least.

Faith pointed down the street. "There it is - that big building on the left."

Alec nodded, and slowed the bike to a stop in front of the main entrance. Getting off the bike, and helping Faith off, he stripped the helmet from his head, and gave the building a cursory glance, noting the darkened windows.

"Doesn't look like anyone's home," Alec commented. Faith took her helmet off, and after taking his, tossed both onto the bike.

"Yeah," she whispered back, her voice sounding strained.

Alec turned to face her. "You all right?" he asked.

Faith shook her head as if to clear it. "Yeah, just a lot of memories," she said with a sigh, and trudged up the front stairs. She pointed to a darkened window on the third floor. "That's his office there." She turned to regard Alec. "So, how do we get in?"

Alec sighed with a hint of dread, and turned to her. "Can you keep a secret?" he asked tentatively.

Faith shrugged and looked at Alec in confusion. "Sure. Why?"

Alec looked back up at the window and then reluctantly stepped into a nearby patch of shadow. The shadows lunged out and consumed him. Faith jumped back in surprise.

"What the fu-?" she peered into the darkness. "Hey, D, you still there?"

The window above her opened suddenly, and Alec peered out from it.

"Stay put, I'll toss down a rope," he called out to her.

Faith looked up at him, confused. "How the hell do you do that? And what rope?" She yelled back.

She got her answer a minute later as a long thick cord emerged from the window and sinuously writhed down the side of the building to come to a stop before her face. Looking deeply apprehensive, she tentatively took it… and yelped in alarm, when the cord wrapped itself around her arm and dragged her up the side of the building with dizzying speed. Before she knew it, Alec was helping her through the window into the office.

Faith spun to him. "What the hell was…?!" her voice trailed off as she noticed the tendril of inky darkness uncoiling itself from her arm to shoot back underneath the flesh of Alec's arm. The skin bulged grotesquely for a moment as the darkness writhed underneath, and then it was gone.

Alec flexed his arm uncomfortably as he looked at her.

"Just a little trick that comes in handy every now and then. Keep mum about it, all right?"

Faith shook her head. "Sure. Whatever," she assured him, smiling appreciatively. "Handy trick though."

Alec snorted gently. "I hear that a lot from Slayers," he replied quietly as he looked around for a light. Finding a desk lamp, he flipped it on.

Faith's face pinched with emotion. Aside from some dust that he would have _never_ tolerated, the office of Mayor Wilkins hadn't changed at all since she last stood here. Before that last fight with Buffy that had ended with the dark-haired Slayer nearly gutted and in a coma. She felt a hand gently settle on her shoulder. She jumped, and spun around, only to have Alec regard her with concern.

"You're sure you're okay?" he asked. Faith sighed and hung her head. She nodded before pointing to a large cabinet.

"All his freak stuff was in there," she informed him quietly.

Alec gave her shoulder a brief squeeze before releasing her and turning to study the cabinet.

"Shouldn't be a problem." He turned back to Faith. "You want to wait outside?" he asked her sympathetically. Faith looked up suddenly – ready to protest – before sighing and nodding her head.

"Yeah, thanks," she replied before turning back to the window.

Gently, Alec extended another tendril of darkness that wrapped around her slim waist, and without so much as a sound of protest, Faith was picked up off her feet, and carried out the window down to street level. Willing the darkness to dissipate into nothingness, he shook his head in commiseration, and then went over to the cabinet. Fingering a large padlock, Alec smiled slightly.

"Trusting sort, wasn't he?" he commented dryly.

Placing a fingertip to the keyhole, a tiny tendril of darkness sprung out from under Alec's fingernail and penetrated the hole. A few seconds later, the lock sprung open and Alec opened the cabinet.

"Wow," he whistled softly as he took it all in. Shrunken heads, a fetus in a jar, and various other fairly macabre items graced the shelves. "This was not your average public servant," Alec commented, as he began gingerly reaching behind the various items, his fingers probing along the walls.

"Ah ha!" he exclaimed, as his fingers discovered a small catch switch.

Pressing it in, he stepped back as the bottom part of the wall beneath the cabinet slid open, revealing a pair of bookshelves containing several tomes. Crouching down, he began examining them.

"Necronomicon, Tobin's spirit guide, Books of Ascension." Alec shook his head in wonderment. This was a pretty eclectic bunch of reading material. "Hmmm… this could be promising." He fingered the binding of one book. " 'La Boca de la Inferno, the mouth of Hell'."

Taking the book from the shelf, Alec flipped through it. It looked to be written in Spanish, and bore some sort of missionary seal. Setting it aside, he continued to peruse the titles. Finding nothing else of interest, he was about to close the compartment when a small leather-bound bundle of papers fell out. Alec picked it up and examined it.

" 'Diary of Richard Wilkins, circa 1898' ?" His eyes widened, and he shook his head. "Definitely NOT your average public servant." Stuffing the diary in his jacket, he quietly closed the compartment. Picking up the other book, he relocked the cabinet, and walked over to the window.

"Faith!" Alec called out the window.

The slayer was leaning against his bike fidgeting. She looked up.

"Catch!" he yelled, laying the book flat on its side, and dropping it; she caught it easily.

Throwing one leg over the window ledge, Alec dangled himself over it, and summoned a shadow from within the room to close the window. Then he simply let go of the window and fell.

"Dusk!" Faith cried out as she rushed futilely to try to catch him. He fell a short distance, and then his coat exploded outwards into a huge wave of trailing darkness, billowing out, quickly slowing his descent. He landed gracefully on his feet.

Faith whistled appreciatively. "Not bad, D! Very McFarland."

Alec eyed her quizzically. "The impressionistic artist?"

"Comic book artist," she replied, grinning. Alec shrugged as his coat became a thing of cloth once more. "Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked.

"Yeah, think so," he replied. As he reached into his jacket, he removed a small cell phone and speed-dialed Buffy.

"What's up, bro?" Her voice came to him over the earpiece.

"We got what we came here for. How are things on your end?" Alec asked. He heard Buffy say something to someone else in the room before coming back on the line.

"We just got Miss Calendar's program up and running. Willow's having a field day with it." Alec smiled crookedly at that.

"I'll bet. Any word from Spike and Angel?"

"Yeah, they just called from a pay phone. They're on their way here," Buffy replied.

"All right, we'll be there shortly. See you soon." Hitting END, he put the phone away, and turned to Faith.

"So, what's the story?" she asked.

"Willow is hacking into the Pentagon with Jenny's magic program, and Spike and Angel are on their way there," Alec told her casually.

Faith nodded, grinning slightly. "Sounds like a typical night for the Scooby Gang. Guess we should get going. Don't want to miss all the fun," Faith cracked. Throwing one last look at the building, she pulled on her helmet, and mounted the bike.

"Guess so," Alec replied quietly.

Strapping on his helmet and getting on the bike, he kicked it to life and rocketed away from the dark building, and the dark memories it held. 


	8. Chapter 7 Comparing Notes

Alec and Faith pulled into Giles's driveway just as Spike and Angel were heading up the walk. Angel headed over to the pair as they stripped off their helmets.

"You got it?" he asked.

Alec grinned as he took the book from Faith and handed it to him.

"Everything you've always wanted to know about the Hellmouth, but were afraid to ask," Alec replied. Angel nodded solemnly.

Spike gagged. "Bloody hell, mate! Woody Allen?!" he spat in disgust.

Alec grimaced in agreement. "I know, I know - Lucas was robbed in '77," he replied. Both Alec and Spike shared a secret love for the Star Wars trilogy, though neither would admit as much to anyone else. Shaking his head, Alec dismounted his bike. Faith also hopped off and walked past Alec and Spike into the house. The blond vampire was eyeballing the bike with obvious disdain.

"Nice crotch rocket," he snickered. "What, a Harley or a Valiant too much machine for you?"

"Harleys just don't have the style I'm looking for," Alec snorted back just as derisively.

Spike glared at him. "You HAVE no style, mate," he retorted. Alec was about to respond when Angel politely interjected.

"Guys? Now's not the time, we've got things that need doing." Brooding, and with book in tow, Angel brushed past them both, heading up to the front door, opening it and, without a glance, proceeded to leave it ajar and drifting to bang against the wall. Alec and Spike exchanged glares, an indication of a disagreement between friends that had not been quite yet forgotten, before following.

The door was open, Buffy, Willow, and Xander were huddled around a computer, Faith was already watching TV, and Giles was on the phone. He nodded in greeting to his son before continuing his conversation.

"Yes, I realize that Quentin is a very busy man and needs his sleep, but this is of the gravest importance," Giles demanded into the phone. A silence followed in which Giles's face became a study in strained patience. "Listen, you silly little sod! I don't care what you have to do, get Quentin Travers on the phone, NOW!" he barked. Everyone in the room turned to regard him in mute shock. The Watcher looked back at them, and had the good grace to appear abashed.

"Please!" he snarled into the phone as an afterthought.

Alec slapped his father on the back good-naturedly before going over to the computer. Willow was in the driver's seat with Xander and Buffy huddled around her. Both of them offered greetings to Alec as he placed a kiss atop Willow's head.

"How we doing, lover?" he asked, leaning against the desk to peer at the myriad of programming code that was flashing across the screen.

The redhead smiled at him and replied, "Miss Calendar's techno-rites are really top notch. They act sort of like a search engine, except that they check all the information on the Internet, not just what's publicly available." She whistled softly. "It's amazing; they're a blend of magic and programming. I can't wait to see what else they can do!" Willow beamed at him like a kid with a new toy. Alec chuckled and kissed her cheek.

"Happy Hannukah, dear," he whispered. Moving away from the screen he turned to Xander.

"Any thoughts on what we ask Riley Claus for Christmas?" Alec asked.

Xander chuckled before turning to address him. "I'm thinking a Daewoo USAS-12 full-auto shotgun. It looks sort of like a really big rifle with an eleven round clip. Problem is, the kick is pretty punishing so we should issue them only to the fairly tough. You, me, our two femme fatales, and those lacking a pulse shouldn't have a problem."

Alec nodded. "Think Riley will be able to get them?"

Xander shrugged. "It's not exactly a standard issue M-16. It depends on where Riley is stationed."

"Got it!" Willow cried out triumphantly. "I am cyber-witch! Kiss me!" she demanded, which garnered smiles from the group. Alec swooped down to steal another kiss.

"Well done, baby. Where is he?" he asked.

Willow punched a few keys before snorting in disbelief. "Area 51, Nevada." She looked up at him, chuckling, before turning to Xander. "I owe you ten bucks."

Xander was grinning widely, not saying anything, then turned to face Spike as the vampire came over to tell him something.

Alec must have looked confused, because Willow took a moment to elaborate. "I made a bet with Xander when we were kids that aliens weren't real. Looks like I was wrong." She smiled as she turned back to the screen. "From vampires to Martians, poor Riley."

Buffy laughed. "Can we get in touch with him?" the slayer asked.

Willow nodded. "Yep, looks like he's got an e-mail address and everything." She tapped a few more keys in rapid succession. "Just in case the government's playing 'big brother' with him, I'm encrypting the message."

Buffy frowned. "Will, if you encrypt it, how will he be able to read it?"

Willow smiled indulgently at her. "Oh, ye of little faith. The encryption will have a password prompt. He'll have to answer a question correctly before accessing it. All I need is a question to ask him that no one else would know the answer to."

"I've got this one covered, Red," Spike volunteered. Grinning, he walked over from talking with Xander and, cupping his hand over her ear, whispered something. Willows face colored scarlet.

"Spike - I can't ask that!" she cried, mortified.

"Why not? Bet you anything Uncle Sam doesn't know that," he countered, grinning.

"Know what?" Buffy asked cautiously as the still-furiously blushing Willow began typing again. Spike leaned over and whispered something into the blonde slayer's ear. Buffy's face morphed right into embarrassed outrage.

"Spike! They are not that big," she yelled as she swatted him.

Spike held up his hands to protect himself. "Check the label yourself, if you don't believe me, love," he replied. Spike continued cackling as Buffy stormed out of the room and into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her.

"What did you say to her?" Alec asked incredulously.

Spike shrugged. "I just suggested the question Willow might want to ask Riley to make sure it's him," the vampire said with a wolfish grin.

"And that was…?"

"The Slayer's bra size."

Alec stood stunned for a minute, and then howled with laughter, quickly joined by Xander. Angel looked uncomfortable and Faith was too busy watching TV to care.

"That's brilliant man, that's just perfect," Alec commented, shaking his head and laughing. "But what makes you think Riley will remember?" he asked.

Spike snorted. "The three things you must always memorize when dating a woman - her birthday, your anniversary, and her measurements. I figured the first two might be on public record." Spike continued to smirk like the cat that ate the canary.

Willow looked up from her work. "Alec, dear, do you have those memorized?" she asked innocently.

Alec scoffed. "Of course I do. April 10th, September 22nd and 36-" he stopped dead as Willow began to blush. Abruptly, the dark-haired man turned his attention to the living room. "Faith? What's on TV? Is that Billy Idol?" he asked as he beat a hasty retreat. Along the way, Alec was nearly run down by his adopted sister emerging from the bathroom, red faced.

Spike arched an eyebrow. "Wel-" he began to ask.

"Shut up!" Buffy snarled at him before sitting down on the couch, her arms folded over her chest. Spike just leered.

"It's fun to be right," Spike chortled as he got up and joined the others watching TV.

Willow, who was very much trying not to succumb to a sudden urge that involved her rolling around on the ground and howling with laughter, finished the encryption work before turning to Xander. She was not surprised to discover that her childhood friend was locked in a serious struggle for the remote control and thus not giving her his full attention.

"Okay, Xander, you're up. Write what you need to and just hit 'send' afterwards," she told him.

Xander relented in his struggles for the remote with a sigh and plopped down into the chair. "Sure, Wills, I got it," he told her before he began to type. Occasionally, he would laugh quietly to himself, and shoot glances at Buffy, who simply crossed her arms tightly against her chest and glared at him.

A few moments later, Giles entered the room, no longer on the phone.

"Well, the council will not send anything in the way of manpower for assistance. Apparently the happenings of a rogue slayer and a disgraced Watcher are not high on their collective list of priorities." The watcher turned his gaze to Faith, who had shifted her focus from the television to him and was now regarding the older man with a hint of dread.

Giles met her gaze steadily. "I did not reveal to them that Faith is with us," he added pointedly. Relief and gratitude flooded the other woman's face. She did not want to fight off another Watcher task-force sent to apprehend her and drag her back to England for trial. "The council still believes she is in police custody, locked safely away in prison," the watcher explained.

Buffy nodded, her face returning to a less-humiliated skin tone. "Good call, Giles," she told him, nodding approvingly.

Giles continued. "However, I did convince Quentin to send us a collection of Watcher and Slayer diaries. They date back several centuries and should prove quite insightful. With any luck, they will be here by morning."

Buffy sighed. It was really all she could expect from the Council. You either played by their rules, or you were considered benched for the duration. Turning to Spike, who was still grinning like an idiot, she addressed him, but not before giving him a dire look which promptly caused his lecherous leer to vanish.

"What did Willy have to say?" she asked him.

Spike became grim. "Something serious is up, love. Everything that has laired either underground, or in the sewers, has vacated," he told her. Xander turned from the computer, which was busy sending the finished letter to Riley, his jaw sagging open.

"Everything? All of them? Just like that?" Xander exclaimed incredulously.

Spike nodded. "It gets weirder, mate. Apparently, those that didn't jump ship fast enough vanished," He snapped his pale fingers. "Poof! Just like that!"

Giles frowned. "What do you mean they 'vanished'? They were… killed?" The watcher asked, disbelieving. Angel shook his head as he interjected.

"Not according to those that went looking for them. In most cases, their havens were untouched, here and there a sign of a scuffle, but no blood, no bodies. Nothing." Angel shook his head and continued in a quieter, even more somber tone. "I've never seen anything like it. Vampires, especially those that make their havens underground, do not simply up and leave without telling anyone. Not like this." Angel sent Buffy a grave look. "Something is very wrong here," he said quietly.

Buffy paled a little, and turned to address Spike. "Did anyone have a clear idea about what happened to them?" she asked him.

Spike shook his head. "Those that had a clue were not talking. Not even with a lot of persuasion, and believe me, love, I used a lot of bloody persuasion," Spike assured her, then frowned. "I must be losing my touch."

"Willy was scared out of his mind, Spike," Angel put in. "I think whatever put the fear in his heart may be more vicious than you," he said with a slightly barbed tone in his voice. Spike jerked his head up to glare at his grandsire.

"Bollocks! What would you know of 'vicious', you great poofter?" Spike retorted with a sneer.

Buffy cleared her throat with more than a hint of frustration. "If you don't mind, boys, can we get back to the matter at hand here?" she asked with strained patience. "What you're saying is that something has managed to convince everything under the ground to vacate, and not everyone made it out?" she asked, addressing them both.

Spike nodded. "More or less, you should have heard Willy griping about how this is costing him business." Spike grinned, flashing his fangs a little. "I was almost tempted to silence the little twit when the Great Sod over here" - he casually gestured to Angel - "implied that torturing the barkeep was out of fashion."

With a concerned look, Buffy turned her attention away from the bickering vampires and addressed Xander.

"Xander, do you remember two Christmases ago, when Angel was having some serious dark mojo worked on him?" she asked her friend. Xander nodded.

"Yeah, something called 'the One' "? he replied, frowning in thought. Buffy nodded her own head.

"Right, do you remember if there were any demons or vampires in the bar that night?" she asked him. Xander bobbed his head, again, though more slowly this time.

"Y-e-e-ah. Yeah, there were. I remember, because Willy made a big deal about you walking in there and a couple of the patrons sort of slinked away. Why?" he inquired, confused. Buffy turned back to Spike.

"Spike was there anyone at the bar besides Willy?" she asked. Spike furrowed his brow in concentration before his eyes widened in comprehension.

"No," he told her as he turned his head to lock his eyes with Angel, whose expression was equally stunned. "Not a bloody soul. That's why it was such a perfect time to torture that little creep Willy. No witnesses," Spike informed Buffy as he turned back to her. "Of course, with this sodding chip in my head, murdering Willy in a slow and creative way might have given me a splitting headache. But still…Willy's was completely deserted," he said with a shrug. "I thought we'd just missed happy hour or something."

Alec re-entered the room, apparently more daunted by Faith's choice in viewing programming than the blonde slayer's indignant modesty. Angel shook his head.

"No, most vampires head to Willy's right after sundown for a quick breakfast. It being deserted means that…" Angel's voice trailed off.

"…it means that whatever is under the ground is more frightening than whatever it was you faced that Christmas." It was Alec that finished the sentence for the rest of them in a quiet voice. He turned to gauge Buffy's reaction.

Buffy shuddered, remembering her encounter with the demonic manifestation of the late Miss Calendar. It was only in its last moments, as it prophesized Angel's death gloatingly, that it revealed its true, monstrous form just for a moment, before vanishing.

But Buffy had had nightmares about it for weeks. That last, terrible moment had been enough to sear itself into her mind. And whatever was under their feet right now was supposedly even worse.

Spike, noticing the sudden ashen complexion of his lover, quickly moved next to her and gathered her into a tight embrace. In his arms, he was horrified to feel her shaking with fear. He'd never seen her like this. Not when she'd faced Angelus, faced Adam, not even when she had faced _him_ and Dru, all those years ago. He stroked her hair soothingly.

"Shhh, it's all right baby, it's going to be okay," he reassured her quietly as he sent a challenging look at Angel, expecting Buffy's ex to be jealous, or angry, at the display. Angel's expression did not disappoint Spike and the tension between the two vampires seethed hotly.

Alec cleared his throat and gestured at Angel. The vampire shifted his glare from Spike and focused his attention on the other man before him. The young man gestured to his father. Angel took the hint and, stalking away from Buffy and Spike, handed Giles the book Alec had given him.

"That's the book we found at the mayor's office," Alec informed his father. "It looks like some sort of record or factual account." Giles opened the tome and began looking through it as his son continued to speak. "It has a monastic seal on it. My guess is it's a record written by the first pilgrims here," Alec finished. Giles nodded his approval at his son's reasoning.

"Yes, I believe so. It's written in some sort of Spanish dialect." Giles took off his glasses and squinted at the pages of the book, concentrating. "It looks like a hybrid of old world Latin and Spanish." Giles closed the book and replaced his glasses on his nose, looking up to face his son. "It'll take some time to translate," he told Alec.

"I've got a pretty good translation program, Giles," Willow chimed in. "Give me some time to adapt Miss Calendar's technomancy to it and I can scan it into the computer."

Buffy, having calmed down a little, turned to address her the young witch.

"I dunno, Wills, you and scanning old texts don't have the best history together. You may want to check it first, just to make sure the Mayor didn't try to get clever with it," she warned Willow.

"That sounds like him," Faith added, having torn her attention from the television. "He was pretty good at that magic stuff, managing to make himself invincible and all." Faith turned her head away from Buffy to Alec. "The cabinet wasn't protected?" she asked the young man. Alec shook his head.

"If there had been any sort of protective incantations placed on it, they probably dissipated once he died. Still, it's a good idea," he conceded before turning to address his father. "Dad, do we have the necessary ingredients at the store?" Alec asked. Giles scoffed gently.

"Oh, come now, Alec, of course we do," he replied; a hint of wounded professional pride creeping into his voice. "We can stop at the store to check the book for wards on the way to the Bronze," Giles said.

Spike looked up.

"You're sure this meeting is a good idea, old man? I mean, Drac was never exactly a man of his word or anything."

Alec favored Spike him with a wry grin. "Whereas you are a paragon of virtue, right?"

Spike muttered something obscene which garnered a laugh from the group.

"Hold up," Faith interrupted. "'Drac?' as in Dracula? Like, THE Dracula, the prince of Darkness, Bela Lugosi, Gary Oldman, THAT Dracula?" Faith exhaled hard in excitement and shot Buffy a wistful look. "Wouldn't that be the staking of a lifetime, eh, B?" she asked. Buffy actually smiled a little at that.

"I have staked him twice, and apparently he's still around, so I'm not sure that's really do-able," Buffy admitted. Faith, still shaking her head in wonder, went back to the television. Alec checked his watch.

"Well, we better not keep the Count waiting." He turned to Willow. "Come on, love, we'll drop you off at the magic store on the way there. You can play 'Let's find out if this book has a magical booby trap'," he joked.

Willow rolled her eyes at her boyfriend, sticking out her tongue.

"Gee, my favorite game," she commented, dead-pan, before stopping and glaring at Alec. "Hey, wait! I wanna see Dracula again!" Willow whined, perhaps suffering from a little intellectual curiosity. Alec shook his head.

"It's not that big a deal; he's actually much shorter in real life," he told his girlfriend, smiling indulgently at her.

"Yeah, and he's got bad breath, too," Buffy added. Alec shot her an inquiring look. Buffy just shrugged, offering no explanation.

"Never tell me," Alec demanded quietly. Buffy crossed her heart. With a quiet sigh, he changed the subject.

"Did you get Anya that talisman?" he asked his sister. Buffy nodded.

"She said she'd give her demon buddy a chant tomorrow; something about the moon being in the right phase or something." Buffy shot Xander a mischievous look as she remembered his enjoyment of her earlier humiliation. "She also asked if Xander could stop at the all-night drug store. She said he'd know why," she added in a voice much louder that it needed to be. With a vengeful grin of her own, Buffy watched Xander flush crimson as several pairs of eyes scrutinized him intently.

"Gum, she wants gum," Xander retorted defensively.

Spike laughed derisively. "Yeah, what kind: ribbed or lambskin?" the vampire asked.

Alec stifled a laugh. Faith didn't even bother with stifling.

"The Earth is doomed," Giles declared morosely as he took in this display of childish behavior.

Buffy patted his arm in mock sympathy. "Now now, if we had a dime for every time you'd said that," - she stopped and frowned, suddenly at a loss for words - "we'd… have… a lot of dimes," the fair-haired slayer finished awkwardly. Giles looked at her askance at her verbal blunder.

Spike rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that was witty," he commented dryly.

Buffy glared at him. "Heel," she barked at him as she left for the door. Spike instantly achieved a melodramatically contrite manner.

"Yes, dear, anything you say, dear…" he trailed off in a faux-meek tone, his head bowed as he followed her out the door. Faith laughed as she observed it.

"Man, B's got her man whipped," she commented. Xander turned to her.

"That's only if he asks nicely," he joked. Faith flashed him a smile and continued to laugh as she headed out the door. Willow, Giles, Angel, and Alec followed. Angel stopped to confront Alec.

"You didn't tell me Dracula was here," his said quietly to the other man in a mildly accusatory tone as they stepped out of the house.

"You didn't ask," Alec replied simply, as he closed the door and locked it behind him. Angel grumbled something about Dracula owing him money and headed to his car.

Spike was already in the passenger seat; his leg dangling over the side with his head thrown back, smoking a cigarette and banging on the dashboard in time to the Sex Pistols blaring out of the car speakers. Angel swatted his leg, hard.

"Feet in the car," Angel said tersely as he reached out and plucked the cigarette out of Spike's mouth just as the other vampire opened it to protest. "And no smoking," he finished with a growl. Spike gave him the finger as Angel got in the car and carefully backed it out of the driveway.

"You know, you weren't this much of a sodding berk when you were lacking a soul. Why don't you go get fleshy with a piece of crumpet so you can have that stake rammed up your arse you call 'a soul' removed and so I can go back to having a good time?" Spike ranted contemptuously. As Angel cut the wheel, he 'accidentally' smacked Spike upside the head.

"Hey!" Spike protested. "Watch the hair!" he smoothed his hair back. Angel gritted his teeth.

"Spike, trust me, if I ever lose my soul again, your immediate future is going to consist of being made able to fit in this ashtray," Angel snarled as he reached down and jerked open the car's ashtray… only to stare at it in stupefaction - it was completely filled with ash, and cigarette butts. Spike favored Angel with a bitter half-smile.

"Yeah? Want to bet?" he commented.

Angel reached over and tore the ash tray clean out of the dashboard, then hurled it to his right without a glance; as it sailed past Spike to land onto the street with a clang (in the process, dumping its contents all over the blond vampire), the ashtray nearly clipped him in the head.

"Bloody Hell!" Spike roared as he brushed at his clothes and hair; trying to get the cigarette butts and ash out. Angel continued to stare straight ahead.

"So, a nice young woman for me to bed for a night? That's what you want, is it Spike?" Angel asked in a quiet tone. Spike, not really paying attention, scoffed and nodded his head vigorously as he continued to fuss at his clothes. Angel whipped his head around to stare at the other vampire, who was still brushing at his clothes furiously and not paying any heed to the older vampire.

"Know any?" Angel asked casually in that same, lethally soft voice.

Spike froze mid-brush, and turned to face Angel very, very slowly. A growl that could not have come from a human throat, a vampire's growl, low and vicious, rolled out from between Spike's lips as the two vampires locked eyes. Angel's knuckles tightened on the wheel until they popped and the steering wheel creaked audibly, a sound of strained leather and plastic as it was slowly compressed by the unrelenting strength of an angry vampire.

They drove on in dangerous silence.

As the lights of Angel's car faded off down the road and into the dark, Giles, Xander, Faith, Buffy, and Willow had all piled into Giles's car. The watcher turned to address his son, who was mounting his motorcycle nearby.

"Meeting us at the Bronze then?" the elder Giles asked.

Alec nodded. "I'll scope it out just to make sure everything's kosher," he told his father. Willow hurriedly lurched out from between the two slayers in the backseat, shoving past Faith to stick her head out of the car door window and stare intently at her beloved.

"Be careful, Alec," she warned him, sounding a little worried. Alec winked and blew her a kiss.

"No worries, luv. All is well, and all is well, and all will be well," he quoted to her.

Willow face broke into a wide grin in recognition of the reference.

"Mr. Wednesday from 'American Gods'! You remembered!" she exclaimed, joy and amazement melting away her fear for him.

Alec grinned his crooked grin at her; the one she found so endearing.

"Of course I did, baby, your favorite book and all." He offered as a wry explanation before strapping on his helmet and starting up his bike.

"I love you!" Willow cried out, trying to make herself audible over the high-pitched whine of the sports bike. Alec stopped the engine and, taking off his helmet, met her eyes with his.

"I love you, too, Willow. More than anything," he told her, quietly but firmly.

Willow smiled, and pulled her head back into the car, pointedly ignoring the bemused looks she was getting from the others. Giles was backing out of the parking lot as Buffy snapped open a compact to fuss with her make-up, peering intently into the tiny mirror.

"You know," Faith began, "I read that book once, at the prison library. Doesn't Mr. Wednesday turn out to be a bad guy in the end?"

Willow smiled, and shook her head as, outside, the sound of Alec's bike starting up, again, could be heard.

"Not_my_ 'Mr. Wednesday'. Never in a million years," the red-haired witch assured the scarred slayer. "You may be an expert in vampire butt-kicking, Faith, but you don't know what it's like to be loved by a man like _that_."

Faith turned to look back out the window at the dark; to stare, more specifically, at the point where the taillights of Angel's car had disappeared.

"Yeah, you got that right, Red," Faith whispered softly. Willow, lost in the joy of being loved, didn't hear her. Faith, lost in her thoughts, didn't say anything further.

Buffy, however, who was lost in neither at the moment, watched her own reflection watch Faith in the tiny mirror of the compact. The same mirror that had just allowed Buffy to witness the entire exchange without anyone noticing. The same mirror, in fact, that now granted Buffy the opportunity to scrutinize the play of emotions across Faith's face as it was reflected, faint and ghost-like, in the glass of the car window that the disgraced slayer was now staring out of.

Longing and a deep, abiding ache; that was what Faith's reflected face now displayed, that was what Buffy saw in the compact mirror.

Buffy turned the compact mirror back to face her now, to stare at her own reflection; only to find her eyes had become twin slits of malice and jealousy that now stared back at her, full of accusation.

Buffy snapped the compact closed with a quick and violent motion. Willow jumped and regarded Buffy curiously. Faith didn't appear to have noticed it. Buffy, cramming it back into her purse with tight, angry movements, proceeded then to fold her arms across her chest and stare out her own window, now also lost in thought.

Giles's reflection, however, which had watched Faith, had watched Buffy watch Faith, and now watched them both from its place within the rearview mirror, did not appear to be lost in anything. It was sharp-eyed as it continued to observe them unawares. That reflection, Giles's reflection, studied them with an expression so blank and devoid of emotion as to be more of a mask than a face; save for two, troubled eyes, hidden behind glasses. The reflection of those troubled eyes continued to peer out from behind the blank mask of a face, captured in the rearview mirror. It took in the state of the two slayers in the backseat and it was not pleased. Not pleased at all.

Giles's hand tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles going white as the blood was forced from them by the intensity in which the man squeezed the wheel.

They drove on in dangerous silence.


	9. Chapter 8 Revelations

"There's Alec," Buffy said as she pointed to the young man reclining against his bike in front of the Bronze, "Looks all right," she observed. Giles nodded assent and gently pulled the car over to the side of the street. Before shutting off the engine, he looked to Alec for some signal that all was well. Alec caught his look and flashed him a quick reassuring thumbs-up. Giles sighed, and releasing a breath he didn't know he had been holding, shut off the car engine and got out, taking a few minutes to look around. Meanwhile Buffy walked up to meet Alec.

"How's it look, Bro?" Buffy asked Alec, walking towards him. Alec shrugged.

"Not a soul in sight," he checked his watch.

"That's comforting" Buffy snorted.

"Right, forgot, Vampires lack souls."

POW!

"Hey!" Alec cried out as he rubbed the spot on his arm where Buffy had just punched him, "What the hell was that for?" he demanded.

Buffy just glared daggers at him, waiting for the revelation to come to her brother: it did.

"Angel." Alec said simply.

Buffy nodded and didn't say anything else as Giles approached them.

"No sign of our esteemed host?" the older man asked. Alec shook his head.

"Negative. We are a few minutes early though," Giles nodded as Buffy gave the building a quick look.

"So are we breaking in and taking the stairs or are we fire escaping it?" she asked. Alec gestured to the front doors.

"I've already unlocked them. Shall we?" Heading towards the doors, he turned and regarded his father for a beat.

"Ready to meet the most famous vampire of all time?" he asked dryly.

"Thrilled," Giles responded, just as dryly. Alec chuckled and held the door for them as they entered.

They made their way through the deserted club, found the stairwell rooftop access and trudged up the stairs. A little quick shadow play from Alec unlocked the door and they were up on the rooftop. Alec inhaled a deep breath of night air and gazed up at the stars.

"Well, here we are … now what?" Buffy asked.

"It would seem that we wait," Giles responded.

"Guys?" Alec spoke up, a strange tone in his voice. Slayer and Watcher turned to face him, "I don't think we have to wait long." He pointed up at the night sky. Confused, the others followed his gaze and stiffened when they saw it.

A long trail of green and white mist lazily curled through the air, coming down out of the sky and pooling opposite the three. The mist piled higher and higher onto itself, slowly taking on a more definite shape, finally, as if he were stepping out of a fog into clear view, Dracula stood before them. He bowed sweepingly.

"Good evening," he said in a voice that rumbled. The rumble became a purr as he noticed Buffy. His blue eyes danced with amusement, "Ah, Buffy, How nice it is to see you again," he growled, flashing her his most dazzling smile. Buffy, however, had long since been immune to his charms.

"Pleasure's all yours Count," she retorted. Dracula chuckled and regarded the eldest of the group.

"Ah, the infamous Rupert Giles. Van Helsing of the modern world," he bowed cordially, "I pay homage to such a learned man." Giles, far from being flustered by the regal behavior, rose to the occasion.

"And I pay respect to the Vampire Prince," he returned, mirroring the Count's bow with a dignified nod of the head. Dracula chuckled in amusement, for a moment ignoring Buffy, to regard father and son.

"There is much of your father in you, young Alec Giles. Even without your demonic essence, I sense a great power," his fangs flashed in that same display of predatory appreciation, "you would have made a formidable vampire." All three of them narrowed their eyes at this comment. Alec cleared his throat,

"I believe you had some information for us?" he inquired. Dracula conceded to the heavy-handed attempt at changing the subject with his usual unflappable grace,

"Just so, young Giles, what is it you would know?" Alec gestured to Buffy, allowing her to speak.

"What happened to everything that was living in the sewers and caves before this?" she demanded. Dracula smiled unpleasantly,

"Alas, those that did not flee fast enough were made part of a larger whole. I imagine it was quite unwilling," he informed her cryptically. Buffy frowned,

"What do you mean 'part of a larger whole'? Are you saying they were killed?"

A faint smile graced the Counts lips, "If they were vampires, were they not already dead?" Buffy growled in frustration and was about to speak when Giles interrupted her,

"What of the Key? Why does the Hellmouth fear it, Count Dracula?" Dracula's head inclined slightly in appreciation of the genial courtesy in his tone.

"Ah, so there IS one amongst you with some knowledge of proper decorum, this is good. Proof that etiquette truly is the purview of the elder." Dracula smiled appreciatively at Giles before continuing, "the Key, like any key, can serve two functions," he held up two long, perfectly manicured fingers to signify this, " it can unlock a door, or it can lock it. The Hellmouth, in some ways, is such a door. The Key could either open it, unleashing demonic wrath upon the world, or it could close and lock it forever," the Count finished, " but this analogy only applies if you consider the Hellmouth as a door, and such an analogy has its flaws, I'm afraid."

"Why now, though?" Buffy interrupted the Vampire Prince who scowled in disapproval but let it go, "Why is now so important?" Dracula sighed patiently and spoke as if he was addressing a small, not terribly bright, child.

"Because now it has the energy to do so, energy that you have helped provide," he replied, pointing a long pale finger at her like a knife. Buffy leapt back as if stung.

"Me? What are you talking about? I haven't done anything!" she protested. Dracula chortled.

"Really? For over five years, you have been the most successful slayer in the history of the world; every manner of demon or vampire has fallen to you in combat. Did you really think that that would account for nothing?" He asked incredulously. There was something he wasn't telling them, something he wanted them to figure out. Alec reached it first,

"It's been giving the Hellmouth strength hasn't it? All those slain vampires and demons?" he answered quietly. Dracula clapped his hands together approvingly,

"Ah, the blood of the Watchers has graced you with a keen mind, young hybrid," Dracula laughed quietly, "to answer your question: yes, the slayer's astonishing success rate has given it a steady diet of negative energy to feed from."

"Negative energy?" Giles inquired, unfamiliar with the term, Dracula smiled indulgently,

"Yes, as opposed to positive energy. Call it life force, mana, vitae – it makes little difference. Positive energy is that which animates all life, from plants to people, and it is this energy that a vampire gains sustenance from when he feeds on the living. The blood is merely a method of conveyance. The sun is also a source of positive energy, though it is far too powerful to be utilized in the same fashion," Dracula gestured to himself, "hence the somewhat volatile reaction a vampire has to the rays of the sun." Alec spoke up,

"So if positive energy is what animates the living, then negative energy…" his thoughts trailed off.

"…Is that which animates the dead. It is the power of darkness, of death and of the night," Dracula finished. He raised a finger to gesture at Alec, "You, my friend, are such a creature, to some degree. The power that flows in your veins is not that of sun and life, but that of that of shadows and the cold void between the stars."

"But Alec can go out during the day without being burned alive," Buffy interjected, shaking herself out of her grim reverie. Dracula sighed and nodded indulgently,

"Yes because, despite this, he is still alive. His heart beats, his lungs breathe and blood flows in his veins. Vampires are beings powered entirely by negative energy, as are ghosts and most demons. A vampire that ventures into the sun is bombarded by its positive energy, which reacts violently to the vampire's negative energy; this is what causes the vampire to combust upon being exposed to the light of day," he smiled a cold bemused smile, "please bear in mind, that this is a terribly simplistic view of things. However, I do not believe you are yet ready for the more comprehensive explanation."

"So every time Buffy killed a vampire, its negative energy was released to be absorbed by the Hellmouth," Alec finished quietly. Dracula nodded,

"Correct. Sunnydale, and to a lesser extent, all of California, has a most peculiar effect on the newly risen. Something happens to these vampires after they are put to into the earth but before they arise for the first time. Some sort of...infection stains their minds and souls, rendering them vicious and beastlike," Dracula smiled slightly, "well MORE vicious anyhow. In my homeland of Transylvania, the very soil has power. It is fortified with the essence of the people there, their resilience, their…strength of heart,"

Alec thought he detected a hint of native pride creeping into the Count's voice. His interest now peaked, the young man listened intently as Dracula continued to speak.

"And so, a vampire that hails from that region, may sleep in the earth of his homeland, and awaken rejuvenated." He concluded.

"The legends of vampires gaining power by sleeping in their native earth are true then?" Giles asked. Dracula nodded,

"To an extent, yes. My home possesses great power. In every patch of soil, in every tree and drop of lake water: power." Dracula's face darkened, "The land here though is…tainted somehow. Corrupted by the Hellmouth's foul touch, I assume." A look of extreme distaste crossed the Count's features before he continued, "The vampires here are unlike any other in the world. It is as if their demon has completely taken control, robbing them of their rational mind."

"Isn't that the norm for vampires?" Buffy asked sarcastically. Dracula shook his head.

"Not necessarily, a vampire, freshly risen, is as a newborn child. It has no concept of right or wrong. The slate upon which was written, its living moral code, has been wiped clean. It knows only the hunger that wracks its body. For most vampires, hunting down a human for food remedies this. Unfortunately for humanity, this ingrains a deep sense of amorality into the vampire. Once a newborn vampire learns to regard humans as food; that is what they shall ever be to him: cattle to be slaughtered for sustenance and nothing more. Thus, the vampire loses touch with their humanity, becoming instead beasts and not men. THAT is what makes most vampires inherently evil. That one deed, in order to satisfy their appetites, eventually leads to the vampire's eternal servitude to evil."

Buffy snorted in disbelief: a coarse sound coming from such a delicate-looking woman and one that raised the ire of the Count, who narrowed his eyes in displeasure at the unladylike display. Clearly disturbed by what she was hearing, Buffy did not appear to notice.

"So what you're saying is that vampires that are born outside of California are nicer?" She asked in disbelief.

"That they are nicer: no. This is not so," Dracula corrected. "Only that they are more balanced; less disposed to one moral extreme or the other. I have known vampires that were greeted by their sires who had the foresight to procure jars filled with blood for them to sup upon. Once having done so, the vampire does not then automatically associate human beings with food. A vampire may still decide to kill for their meals, most do so, but it is at least aware that there IS an alternative. The vampires I've seen here however are hence unaware of such alternative. They know only that in order to live, the living must die," Dracula finished.

Giles had grown a rather pasty white through all of this as some of the most base beliefs of the Watcher's themselves were shaken down to their very core. Alec turned to Buffy.

"Buffy, have you ever noticed that every vampire that comes out of its grave, their face has already undergone the change?"

Buffy shrugged nonchalantly. "Yeah, so?"

Alec smiled grimly and turned back to the Count, "That's not normal, is it Count? Vampires where you're from do not rise from the grave with their faces already distorted by the demon, do they?" Dracula smiled in obvious pleasure at the young man's perceptiveness.

"This is so. The face of a freshly risen vampire is as smooth as yours or mine; its first emotion is confusion, not demonic, homicidal mania.

Giles cleared his throat. "Let me see if I understand this clearly, Count: the Hellmouth corrupts vampires in their graves. Since a vampire already has predatory tendencies, it simply takes these tendencies and infuses them with demonic essence, which is evidenced by the distortion of their faces?"

Dracula nodded, "This is so.

Giles continued, "And so when they arise, they immediately attack, because their first impulse – what has been programmed into their minds – is that they need to kill to feed," he looked up at the Count of confirmation, the Count nodded slowly.

Giles continued his train of thought, "Which means, that since the Hellmouth knows the Slayer is here and is usually waiting for them when they awake, it's essentially convincing them to commit suicide, thus releasing the very demonic energy that animates it, the same demonic energy that twists its mind," he looked up at Dracula, "the same demonic energy that the Hellmouth itself put into it in the first place." Dracula smiled, pleased.

"Thus it grows stronger," the vampire finished for him. Buffy frowned, puzzled.

"Wait a second, how can it grow stronger if it just animates a vampire that gets killed five seconds later anyway?" she asked. Alec answered,

"Because, in the very act of killing a vampire, or killing anything for that matter, more negative energy is produced. Vampire, demon, human being, it's all the same. When something dies, violently, I'm guessing, there must be some kind of resonance that finds its way back to the Hellmouth," he turned to regard Buffy, "It's the perfect cycle, sis: when a vampire kills and turns someone, that negative energy, released from the violent death of the living, breathing person is absorbed by the Hellmouth. Once the vampire-to-be is buried, the Hellmouth twists its mind, riling it up into frenzy. It emerges, and instead of running away or trying to communicate with you – as I imagine most vampires would…" Alec turned to the Count to verify this; Dracula only smiled encouraging and gestured for him to continue. Alec resumed, "It attacks you, seeing you only as food. You kill it and, in the act of doing so, release more negative energy for the Hellmouth to consume. In essence, the Hellmouth is getting TWO deaths from ONE person with all the accompanying negative energy." He turned his eyes back to the Count, "And this has been going for how long?" Alec asked.

Dracula spread his arms in a grand gesture. "Since time immortal, it is only recently, however, that the Slayer's success has reached such levels that the Hellmouth finds itself well-fed and fully sentient and ready to free itself once and for all," Dracula informed them.

"It's been playing me, this whole time," Buffy whispered in shock, "It's been getting me to do its dirty work, sending it more death to make itself stronger."

Dracula nodded and smiled. "Brilliant, is it not? If you slay the vampires, it gains life from their death. If you do not slay them, the vampires kill the living, make more of their own, twisted kind and the Hellmouth reaps the power of all these deaths. Truly, the Hellmouth possess a diabolical mind."

But," Dracula held up a finger and smiled slyly, "it has made a mistake; or rather it has taken a calculated risk; for while at this very instant it stands at the threshold of ascension, it is now also at its most vulnerable." The Count explained. Giles scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"As it was in the case involving Mayor Wilkins, invulnerable until he transformed," he commented thoughtfully. Buffy nodded her agreement, still a little dazed by the sheer scope of the Hellmouth's deception. Alec however, scrutinized Dracula.

"You said the Hellmouth was now at its most vulnerable. How?" He asked intently. Dracula nodded.

"The Hellmouth does not exist on merely one plane of existence," Dracula began. "In the distant ages, when the world was still young, the Hellmouth resided mostly in the negative material plane; a plane of existence where there is only the energies of entropy and decay – a so-called 'demon dimension.' In that place it would feed on deaths from the prime material plane – this plane, this earth – that would trickle down into the negative plane from time to time."

Buffy's brow furrowed slightly. "I don't understand," she said, sounding befuddled.

Dracula sighed, with an air of strained patience, and tried again. "Think of a weed; its roots deep in the soil and its stem and leaves in the air. When it rains, water falls from the air, and soaks into the ground to be absorbed by the roots of the weed, yes?" Buffy bobbed her head slowly in half-understanding whilst Alec and Giles were hanging onto the Count's every word.

Dracula continued. "Now picture that the soil, from whence the weed grows, is the negative material plane. This is where the roots of the Hellmouth lay. The point where stalk and shoots sprout, emerging from soil into air, is the prime material plane. Imagine then, that the Hellmouth itself is the weed, from roots to stem: in the beginning, nothing more than a seed. Instead of rain, however: death, hate, entropy, decay, and necromantic power trickled down from your world into its world. There, these energies of evil, soaked into the roots of the Hellmouth. The weed now grows larger: more and more of it broke through the barrier between dimensions and climbed higher and higher into the sky, the sky once again being this dimension here. Over eons and eons, the Hellmouth grew; every unnatural death, every murder, every black hex cast was just more proverbial rain to be soaked up by hungry roots, making this weed of evil stronger. Until at last, the weed is no longer a simple weed, but instead has become a vast underground network, with its roots stretched out across the entire state of California," Dracula snorted quietly. "I imagine it had quite the feeding frenzy once its roots reached Los Angeles. 'City of the Angels' indeed," Dracula waved a hand in dismissal and continued. "With humans butchering each other in the streets, it would have grown quickly, true, but still would not have reached maturity this rapidly. However, if the deaths' of humans is as a trickle of rainwater…"

"…Then demonic and vampiric death is like a flood to it, especially since the Hellmouth can control how much sustenance it gets by riling up vampires into suicidal frenzy. Once the vampires are killed, I imagine it has no problem assimilating the negative energy released. After all, this thing has already had its roots in these vampires since the beginning. This is simply the Hellmouth taking back what already belongs to it, plus a little interest on the side," Alec finished.

Dracula smiled and grinned evilly at Buffy, as if he were enjoying a private joke at her expense. "And what better tender of the garden, then the slayer, who is bound by sacred duty to provide the Hellmouth with what it so desperately needs: unnatural death of creatures abundant with negative energy," Dracula crowed with all the flourish of a triumphant stage magician.

Giles, Alec, and Buffy looked mildly ill, but the Count's logic tracked clean. They, the entire Watcher organization, the slayers and every bit of accumulated lore over countless generations had been twisted to serve the Hellmouth's purposes. Buffy recovered from the shock first.

"So how do we stop it?" She demanded. Dracula nodded and smiled.

"Ah, thus we get to the heart of the matter. I will continue with my plant analogy. The plant has now reached maturity, so much so that it now has the capacity to influence things more directly. It can kill on its own; now no longer requiring the Slayer's diligent ministrations. It has ceased to be like the Venus Fly trap; merely awaiting the arrival of the next batch of the Slayer's kills. It has now achieved full sentience. It can think more clearly now, it can manipulate its surroundings with greater efficiency, and it can manifest more directly."

"The sudden disappearance of everything living in the sewers and underground," Alec blurted out. Dracula nodded.

"I imagine that it is the result of the Hellmouth stretching its vines and opening its petals so to speak. However, this newfound freedom has not come without a cost. In order to do this, the Hellmouth has pulled itself up by the roots, as it were. It can no longer draw substance from all that dies unnaturally; it must feed directly to gain the strength it needs to finally emerge unto the surface. It must kill with its own 'hands' in a manner of speaking."

"So what you're saying is that the Hellmouth isn't getting its jollies from me sending it morsels anymore. It has to get its own before it can fully come into this world?" Buffy asked him.

Dracula shook his head, remorsefully. "No child, it has ALREADY fully entered this world. The Hellmouth has awakened and emerged; it writhes and grows under our very feet." Buffy paled and into the silence, Alec spoke,

"But if it's fully in our realm that means…" Alec stopped short and shot a look to Buffy.

Dracula smiled. "That is correct: for the first time since its birth, the Hellmouth is vulnerable. In the history of the world, only now can it kill directly…and only now can it die. All it lacks is freedom from its underground prison, the freedom to move through the race of man, like locusts move amongst crops; devouring all in their path and growing stronger for it. It cannot do so yet. The Hellmouth's strength has not quite reached that point. It still requires one more element."

"The Key. Dawn," Alec breathed.

"If the Hellmouth succeeds in consuming young Dawn, it will have all the power it needs to free itself and begin to devour the world; returning this world it to its demonic state," Dracula replied.

Alec's face went numb with horror. "No, not for anything, not for the world, it is not taking her," he growled with a vehemence that caused odd looks to cross the faces of Buffy and Giles. Dracula just smiled, as if he was not surprised by Alec's behavior.

"However, all is not lost, for like fish bone on a dinner plate; what it attempts to swallow may instead choke it. Dawn contains the power to utterly destroy the Hellmouth, once and for all. But not alone," Dracula held up three fingers. "She needs three items of great power, three talismans, as it were. Alone they are quite powerful, but together with Dawn, they have the power to annihilate the Hellmouth. The first: a gem, whose location is known by no man. It is known only as the Everstone: that which balances light and dark. The second: a sacred text, a benediction that contains no words, was written by no quill, and exists on no parchment in the world, yet contains the power of absolute holiness. And the third," Dracula smiled slightly, "the most potent of all, the blood of the Neverborn; said to be "of the darkness to defy the darkness," Dracula quoted as he closed his hand into a fist. "These three things, combined with Dawn, and in the presence of the Hellmouth, will eradicate its taint from the prime material plane utterly. Furthermore, because it has already abandoned its home plane: the Hellmouth will wither and simply cease to be."

Buffy looked overwhelmed by it all, her companions did not appear much better off.

"Terrific, so all we need to stop the Hellmouth from devouring the world is a stone that no one knows where to find, a prayer that was never written, and the blood of someone that was never born, and my kid sister, who as we speak is probably throwing a temper tantrum to my mother about going to bed," Buffy finished exasperated.

"Precisely," Dracula replied simply, earning him a withering glare from the slayer. "Beware though, Slayer" he warned in a dark tone, "the Hellmouth is not unaware of its sudden vulnerability. I would say that it is very much aware now, perhaps for the first time since its birth. And being aware as it is, it can now both hunt and kill. It commands the forces of rot, entropy, decay, and death. All that is impure or corrupt answers its call. You must find these artifacts, Slayer, before the Hellmouth or its servants find you…or Dawn," Dracula stated, his voice now lowered to an ominous rumble that filled Buffy with dread.

"Question," Alec interjected, "What's in it for you? I mean, you're still a vampire, surely you wouldn't object to having your species being given free reign over the world once again?"

Dracula straightened proudly and his voice became regal as he spoke, "I love my people, young Giles, I love my homeland. I will not see the Hellmouth's infernal taint corrupt the very soil that has granted me life twice over. I will not see it twist my country as it has twisted hers," he spat, pointing at Buffy, "and I will not see it twist the hearts and minds of my countrymen for whom I once fought for and sacrificed so much to protect. The Hellmouth is an abomination. It must be destroyed. For the sake of my people and my home, all that is left that I love and cherish still, the Hellmouth must never bury its roots in the native earth of my home." Alec acquiesced to the point with a nod.

"So, now what do we do?" Buffy asked, still sounding forlorn.

Dracula considered, "As to the nature of the prayer and the blood, I cannot help you, but to the stone I have a name: Grigori Estate; a name that has come to me only through much time and divination. There you should perhaps find a clue that will point you in the correct direction."

Buffy snorted, "Terrific, where is it?"

Dracula shook his head, "This I do not know." Buffy threw her hands into the air, exasperated.

"Well that's helpful!" she exclaimed before sighing heavily. As she brought her hands back down she was surprised to see that they were shaking. And in that moment, the full scope and size of the forces she was pitted against washed over her like a wave, threatening to crush her, to drag her down and drown her deep in the cold dark. She heard a whimper of fear, and was shocked to realize that it came from her. Instantly she felt two pairs of strong arms wrap around her, as the elder and younger Giles held her tightly.

"We can do this, Buffy," Alec whispered fiercely. Giles nodded and squeezed Buffy tighter, united with his son in his unwillingness to allow the woman he'd come to love as his own daughter to succumb to despair.

"Indeed you can, young warrior," Dracula declared before he turned his attention from Alec to Buffy. "You are a light, Slayer, the light of all lights. You are a warrior who does not know death. And even as the Hellmouth's strength grows, so too, shall your own strength grow." Dracula shook his long mane of hair in a gesture of admonition, "Do not forget that for every generation, there has been a slayer, the chosen warrior for the forces of light. You descend from a long and noble line of warrior-women. Cry out to them, and they shall hear you, my child." In a single fluid motion, Dracula crossed the distance between them and, reaching out, touched Buffy's hair gently, almost reverently. Buffy started at the touch as Giles and Alec's arms fell away from her.

"I know this power is within you. I have known this power for generations upon generations," the Vampire Prince stated and, for a moment, his face lost its usual cold regality and was replaced by something that could only be called longing, "Oh yes. I know this power," Dracula smiled slightly before regaining his former poise. "Never forget what blood runs hot through your veins. It is the blood of ages and of iron, young woman, the blood of noble crusaders, and those who stood against the forces of darkness; beating the forces of Hell back with might and honor."

Buffy found herself entranced by his words, and within her, somewhere deep in her heart, she felt a spark of hope. She inhaled deeply, her back straightened from its defeated slump, and her eyes cleared of despair.

"Thank you," she murmured softly.

Dracula started to reach again, as if to caress her face, before he seemed to catch himself. The hand dropped and a twisted, self-mocking smile formed upon the vampires lips. "It is I, who should thank you, Buffy Summers. It will be you that saves all that I love from this unspeakable evil," his reverential tone of voice wildly contrasting with the bitter expression etched upon his pale features. Taking her hand in his, he bent low and kissed it, before moving back, his fingertips lightly dancing against the skin of her hand.

Buffy was suddenly seized by a strong impulse to go to the Vampire Prince, to comfort him, and she had to stop herself from reaching out.

Dracula straightened from his bow to regard the two men proudly, "Protect her, gentlemen and protect her kin. Never forget that these women shall be the salvation of the world," he told them both gravely and with a cordial nod to each of them, he turned and walked towards the roof's ledge.

"Hang on a second," Alec called out, detaching himself from the rest of the group to confront the Count.

"You told me the other night, that I would receive answers tonight," Alec whispered as he shot a wary look to Giles and Buffy. Satisfied that they were not listening, he continued in a hushed tone, "You haven't explained to me why I have these…feelings for Dawn."

The Count smiled enigmatically at him, "Ah, but you forget, young Giles, I said tonight you would receive answers. I never said to which questions though, did I?" he taunted. Alec's face darkened dangerously and at the sight, Dracula held up a placating hand, "You will know what you must, when you must, young Giles. That will have to satisfy you for now," he said simply. With another regal nod, he stepped up onto the ledge...and stepped out into empty space, dropping from sight. Alec walked carefully to the ledge and peered over.

The Count was nowhere to be seen. As Alec strained to detect some hint of the Vampire Prince, his ears picked up a whisper of a sound, carried on the night air: laughter; rich and dark, with an edged tone that sounded like a man enjoying a private joke at another's expense.

With a sigh, Alec pushed away from the ledge and headed back to the Slayer and her Watcher.


	10. From the Desk of Deacon Rayne A Prelud

From the Desk of Deacon Rayne

01/02/08

Greetings, Salutations and Happy New Year,

Well, I imagine if you're reading this, then you already know who I am and so I will forgo the introductions so that I may instead right now, take this opportunity to thank you. Thank you for the attention and thank you for the time you have spent with my story: it has, and continues to be, both my honor and privilege to receive your patronage, to share this story with you and to have you share your thoughts and wishes regarding it, with us, in return.

After being absent for many years, only to come back and, almost effortlessly, reacquire the sustained interest of you, the readers, was a gift that I had neither expected nor had earned. You, reading this now and leaving the comments you've left is absolutely vital. Not only does art absolutely REQUIRE an audience, but your interest and your comments, ranging from suggestions to simple words of encouragement and expressions of interest help sustain all of our efforts: by helping us remained motivated and, speaking for myself, helps me become a better writer in the process.

Unfortunately, not even the best motivation will overcome the occasional complications life throws at us.

By now, you've noticed that the Friday update did not go up as scheduled last week. Regrettably, a combination of people not being available for the holidays, technical failure, and the loss of an editor stretched our resources to the breaking point and this week, my colleagues and I simply could not get the chapter posted in time.

"A mistake is not a mistake the first time it is made; it is a learning experience". That's a saying I've always enjoyed and I believe that it holds true for this "learning experience" as well. A new editing schedule has been set up and responsibilities have been redistributed so that this does not happen again.

This _should not_ have happened at all: if you, (I am not speaking of "you" in the "anonymous fan-base" sense but YOU, specifically, the reader, right now reading this) are going to devote the time and energy to faithfully tune in every Friday Night to read the latest chapter of the Hellmouth Ascendant Trilogy (Much as all of us tuned in to see Buffy or Angel every week), then we have an obligation, to you, to see that your devotion is rewarded by ensuring that every week, the material is their and ready for your enjoyment.

Speaking personally, I used to get really upset when Buffy or Angel would be preempted for a holiday special or an episode would be axed completely due to the political climate (especially in the US; see below). Thus, if I intend to avoid hypocrisy, then I intend to make sure I don't do the same thing, for whatever reason.

At any rate, below are a few pages of BRAND NEW material. Beginning with this chapter, the Hellmouth Ascendant Trilogy truly begins to earn its title of "Re-Vamped Edition". I have done everything in my power to remain true to the canonical material of the Buffy/Angelverse (including the official comics that make up Season 8) in regards to this story and to the new material. I ask your indulgence in the event that I make a mistake: I offer no excuses, merely the simple fact that nobody is perfect.

These pages are my gift to you specifically and to you all as well, it is my way of saying three things to you:

"I am sorry for not making sure that this was not waiting for you when it was wanted and when it was supposed to be"

"I am truly grateful for everything all of you have given me over the last few years: All the support and encouragement and feedback. Thank you all very, very much"

And finally

"I promise each and every one of you who have been reading, who continue to read and who are just starting to read this story; this will never happen again if I have any control over it whatsoever".

I sincerely hope that not only will you all continue to read this story but that those of you who have (or have yet to) added comments will do so.

Enough talk. Enjoy the new material. 2008 will a year of failing light, darkness, and the coming dawn. I invite you all to join me on the journey.

Remember, it could have been a lot worse as far as this delay: do any other US citizen's remember how long it took to finally see "Becoming Part 2" and "Earshot"?

See you Friday

Yours Faithfully,

**Deacon Rayne**


	11. Chapter 9 Kind Lies

The ride back to Buffy's house was quiet. Giles and Buffy were lost in thought, with Alec behind them on his bike in much the same state. They'd decided that they'd had enough for one night. Calling from her cell phone, Buffy told Willow to let everyone know she'd decided to head home. Willow didn't ask what had happened, but had let Buffy know that indeed there was a minor incantation protecting the tome from the Mayor's office. She'd been able to take care of it fairly easily. Buffy also told Willow to make sure Spike and Angel do not go into the sewers for any reason whatsoever.

"Is it bad?" Willow asked her when Buffy was finished.

"It's beyond bad," Buffy replied. "I'll fill you in tomorrow."

Willow wished Buffy a good night and hung up.

Giles and Buffy pulled into her driveway with Alec right behind them. After exchanging a few supportive words with Buffy and Alec, Giles backed out of the driveway and headed back to the shop to begin work translating the journal.

Alec shut off his bike, and walked over to Buffy. "Hell of a night, eh?" he said.

Buffy snorted slightly before responding.

"Yeah, you could say that. You sticking around?"

Alec nodded. "I'm going to go check on Dawn. Figure I'd say hello," he told her.

"You really got a soft spot for the kid, don't you?" she asked, amused.

Alec shrugged uncomfortably.

"I suppose. Guess I just don't think it's fair for a child to be saddled with such a burden," he replied as he turned to regard the Slayer. "I'm assuming you can relate."

Buffy froze; she'd never considered that,

"Yeah. Yeah, I can," she admitted, exhaling hard. "Guess I should cut her some slack, huh?"

Alec nodded. "It'd be a good idea. Unlike you, she has absolutely no idea what's going on. It's going to be quite a shock," he said as he shook his head. "It's not easy to go from 'Backstreet Boys' to H.P. Lovecraft."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Backstreet boys are WAY scarier," Buffy joked.

Alec laughed as he opened the door, and he and his sister stepped inside the warm house.

Joyce came out to greet them with a plate of cookies. The whole house had been done up in lights and a large kerosene heater glowed in the corner brightly, staving off the unusually cold weather for California.

"Buffy! You're home!" the older woman exclaimed as she hugged her daughter. Buffy looked at her mother, a tad confused.

"Mom, it's like 1 A.M. What are you doing up…and baking?" she asked.

"I know, honey, but I couldn't sleep, I'm just so excited. The holiday season coming up and all," Joyce explained.

Buffy nodded solemnly. "Yeah, way to pre-empt Christmas," she commented sardonically as she took a cookie from the plate.

Joyce lifted her head to regard Alec. "Oh, Dusk, I can't tell you how grateful I am for you watching Dawn the other night, let me get my purse so I can pay you," she told the other man.

Alec shook his head. "Forget it, Ms. Summers. Consider it a Christmas present," he told her.

Joyce and Buffy stopped and stared at him, dumbfounded, and with Buffy in mid-chew. Neither of them had ever heard of someone watching Dawn who didn't want to be paid handsomely.

"You sure, Bro?" Buffy asked incredulously. "I mean, you stayed with her for hours, you're at least entitled to hazard pay."

Alec grinned, taking a Christmas cookie from the plate. "Just keep me in ready supply of these cookies, Ms. Summers, and we'll call it even. Fair enough?" he asked.

Joyce blushed. "Fair enough, Dusk," she replied, smiling at the compliment.

Buffy smirked as she patted Alec's arm.

"Smooth talker," she commented.

Alec cleared his throat and looked upstairs. "Dawn still awake?" he asked gently.

Joyce nodded. "I decided to let her have one of her presents early. She's upstairs with it right now."

Alec nodded, turning back to face them. "I'm just gonna go upstairs. Wish her a goodnight. Will that be all right?" he asked, gauging their reactions. He was relieved that neither showed any indication that they believed his motivations ran deeper than what he had presented.

_Because they do not! _Alec thought to himself forcibly.

Buffy gave his arm an affectionate squeeze. "Go tell the little monstrosity I said hi, would you?" she asked her brother.

Alec nodded ands assured her, "Not a problem." Munching contently on his Christmas cookie, he headed up the stairs. Reaching Dawn's room, he quietly knocked.

"Go away!" came the response from the other side of the door.

There was a pause, then a familiar voice emitted from the other side of the door.

"Okay. Sorry."

Dawn's eyes widened and, nearly dropping her new video camera, she dove for the door, fumbled with the lock, and yanked it open hurriedly to reveal the young man.

"Alec!" Dawn cried, grinning widely at him. "Hi. Sorry, I thought you were someone else," she explained, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

Alec smiled slightly. "I guess so. Can I come in?" he asked.

Dawn bobbed her head. "Uh-huh, sure," she answered, stepping aside for him to enter.

"Cute pajamas, flannel is you," Alec told her, gesturing at them and flashing her his unique smile.

Dawn blushed furiously. "They were a gift," she offered as an explanation as she tried desperately not to go weak in the knees at that smile, as she almost always did.

"Ah, I see," was his only reply.

Alec stepped through the doorway and as his back was turned; Dawn stuck her head around the door, hurriedly scanning the hallway back and forth to make sure they were, in fact, alone. Upon seeing no one else in the corridor, she nearly hopped with glee before closing it.

_ I've got this guy, in my bedroom, at night. This is SO going in my diary _she thought excitedly. Quickly regaining her composure, she raced past him, jumped back onto her bed, and pulled the blankets over herself. Then, as if she'd forgotten he was there (which was not very likely at all), she reached over and patted a place on the bed next to her, indicating for him to sit as she shifted her feet out of the way.

Alec, still smiling, sat down next to the young girl. "What's this?" he asked as he picked up Dawn's new video camera.

"Isn't it cool? Mom gave it to me," she replied, with an excited grin. Taking the camera from him, she turned it on and started filming him. "Alec, you've just won the World Series, what are you going to do next?" she asked in her best impression of a serious TV reporter.

Alec laughed as he addressed the camera, "Why, I'm going to Disneyland."

She giggled and continued to film him, every now and then zooming in on his eyes or his lips. She suddenly noticed her heart was pounding and quickly asked more questions in a rush to fill the silence,

"So what did you do today? Fight vampires? Save the world?"

"Still working on it," he replied, shaking his head.

Dawn grinned and bit her lower lip in pleasure at the warmth in his tone. "Oh, come on, you can tell me. How does it feel to be a real-life action hero?" she asked him.

The question struck a chord with Alec and he considered it for a while before answering, looking intently into the camera.

"Dawn, we're all heroes. We get up in the morning, go to work so we can provide for our families, or go to school and try to learn something about the world we live in, we all do what we have to do. That's all a hero is, luv: someone who simply does what they have to do," he finished.

"Ommmmmm," Dawn hummed mantra-like, giggling. They both laughed at that.

"All right, Grasshopper, what do you think qualifies as a hero?" Alec asked her.

It was now Dawn's turn to consider a while. "Someone who isn't afraid of anything. Who'll never quit and never die and will always win in the end," she said, never taking the camera off him.

Alec smiled and shook his head ruefully. "You think I'll never die, eh, luv?" he asked, bemused. He tilted his head and looked up at her through the bangs of his hair.

"The good guys never die, and you definitely qualify," she assured him, nodding her head vigorously.

Alec smiled; this time it was a little sad-looking. "How I wish that were true," he said quietly, for a moment lost in an unidentifiable but wholly unpleasant feeling. He gave himself a good mental shake to snap out of it, and turned his attentions back to the girl next to him. "You're wrong about the other part though, Dawn," he continued.

Dawn frowned a little. "What do you mean?" she asked, confused.

"Being a hero doesn't mean you're never afraid," he explained. "It means doing the right thing, despite being afraid. It means willing to give everything you've got and more, to do the right thing, the thing that needs doing, you know? 'Fighting the good fight'." Alec paused a moment in his explanation, to make sure he wasn't boring the young girl. Dawn eagerly nodded to indicate that, no, she wasn't bored, and gestured for him to continue speaking.

"A hero also is someone who, after they're gone, people will still remember. The ones they left behind try to live as their hero had lived. Heroes inspire others to do the right thing, because they themselves do all they can to do the same. They don't always succeed, but the point is that they try and try and try again, doing whatever it takes and giving it their all," Alec told her with a smile. "I imagine, in a way, heroes never really die. They live on forever in the hearts and the actions of the people they inspire."

Dawn's smile, which had yet to leave her face since Alec had first entered her room, now turned impish.

"Wow. That was deep," she joked.

He laughed, "Oh, you're tough," he said.

"On that note, this is Dawn Summers, live with Alec "Dusk" Giles, signing off," she informed all her imaginary viewers in her TV reporter voice.

Pressing a button on the camera, she zoomed out to get as much of the young man as possible in the frame before speaking, "Say goodbye, Alec."

Alec gave her his infamous 'Warm-Fuzzies-Causing' crooked-smile (as she liked to think of it) and he looked intently into the camera again before speaking quietly.

"Goodbye, Dawn."

Smiling, Dawn shut off the camera and put it down.

"You think I'd make a good reporter?" she asked Alec, still grinning.

He nodded. "I know I wouldn't be able to refuse you an interview," he assured her as he tousled her hair affectionately.

She smiled and gently nuzzled her head into his palm like an affectionate cat. For a time, he sat there, gently stroking her hair and Dawn's expression went from blissful to serene. Her eyes closed and her grin became a small smile: a fragile thing, innocent and gentle, a perfect expression of utter peace, warmth, and contentment.

"Dusk? Dawn?" Joyce called from downstairs.

Abruptly, Alec snatched his hand from Dawn's head, causing her eyes to snap open and she gasped in displeasure, as if she had been rudely awakened from a nice dream. Alec didn't seem to have noticed as he reached over to open the door.

"Yes, Mrs. Summers?" he called out.

"Why don't you and Dawn come down for some more cookies and hot chocolate? I've even got those little marshmallows everyone seems to like."

Alec snorted with amusement; Spike's love of those little marshmallows was legendary, apparently it was also well known.

Contemplating killer vampire berserkers and their love of little marshmallows, Alec laughed quietly as he got up from the bed and turned to Dawn. "You feel like som –," he stopped short and nearly gasped himself at what he saw then.

Like a sudden and violent car wreck, Dawn's delicate face had crumpled into an utter wreckage of an expression: it was pure agony - a soul-hurt: a visage of pain and of loss total and complete in its desolation. The kind of suffering that didn't die, but lingered cancerously in someone until it consumed them utterly.

It was horrific for Alec to see such a look on features as innocent as hers. No one should ever look as the young girl did right now and_especially_, not Dawn.

"Hey," Alec whispered, sitting back down next to her and trying not to let on how disturbed he was by what he was seeing, "Are you okay?"

Without replying, Dawn burst into frantic action; she clawed at her blankets in desperation, they tangled and writhed at her frenzied assault and, with a cry like a wounded animal, she hurled the tangled massed of fabric from her.

Alec didn't have time to finish gaping at the sheer ferocious intensity of what he was seeing as Dawn threw herself against him hard, wrapping her thin arms around his body and squeezing as tightly as she could. Stunned, Alec put his arms around her and held her, not really knowing what else to do.

"You'll always be my hero, Alec," Dawn whispered in voice that was the tonal equivalent of her earlier, tortured expression.

It was not the tone of a lost little girl, as Alec had expected, but that of a grown woman, shed of all childish naiveté and immaturity, a woman that had her innocence forcibly replaced with a hard-won wisdom and strength.

A woman that had lost all she held dear in this world.

"Alec…" she whispered again, still holding him.

Alec frowned: she had rarely called him by his human moniker in the past and hearing her say it as she sounded now only added more fuel to his already-disturbed thoughts.

He rocked her soothingly. "Hey, come on, luv," he coaxed gently as he pulled away from her gently, touching her face. Alarmed to see tears welling in her eyes, he tried to smile comfortingly. "Why the water works?" he joked.

His efforts were rewarded and the quip had the intended effect as, with an embarrassed little laugh, Dawn pulled away, sniffling slightly. The moment and all the painful seconds that composed it, had been broken.

"I don't know, I guess I'm just tired," she told him as she sniffled again. "It's nothing. Really, I'm fine," she put on a brave smile to reassure him and perhaps, to reassure them both.

"A disturbance in the Force then?" he replied in a dead-pan Obi-Wan Kenobi impression. Dawn scoffed and rolled her eyes in an attempt to sound exasperated by his bad crack. "You are such a sci-fi dork," she replied in a mock-scolding tone.

Alec smirked indulgently as he spoke, "Guilty as charged, I'm afraid." He leaned over and placed a lingering kiss against her forehead. Dawn closed her eyes and smiled, the last of the misery seemed to drain from her features to be replaced by contentment.

A few moments later, his lips left her brow and he gave her hair a gentle stroke. "Come now, little one," he said, trying to keep his tone casual. But the pet name now seemed to leave a cheap taste his mouth, like a greasy coin between his teeth. Alec smiled just a little harder in an attempt to sell his demeanor of confidence, and inwardly, he was grateful that she had her eyes closed as she was unable to see how miserably he was failing at his kind lie.

"I bet I can eat more Christmas cookies than you can," Alec added, managing a fair approximation of a playful and challenging tone in an attempt to cheer her.

Once again, his efforts were rewarded, much to his relief.

Dawn's eyes opened; the tears from them gone and now replaced by her usual child-like mischief. "Not if I get there first!" Dawn yelled. She gave him a hard shove and he tumbled off the bed, onto the plush carpet below.

As she raced past him, he made a futile grab at her leg. "Well, she takes after her sister," he observed dryly from the floor.

Dawn stopped as she reached the doorway and turned to look down at him. "Well, are you coming?" she demanded querulously.

With a small laugh, Alec got to his feet. "Yes, ma'am," he answered, crossing the threshold and exiting her room.

Dawn followed a few steps when she suddenly sighed in exasperation. "Ugh!" she cried. "Dawn?" Alec asked her, turning with a frown.

"Yeah, no, I'm okay, I just forgot to plug in my camera," she explained. "I'll be right down. You better save me a cookie!" she warned him direly, waving a small finger under his nose.

Alec nodded solemnly and bowed deep at the waist. "It shall be as you command, your highness," he replied.

"And don't you forget it. Off with you then, lowly peasant," she commanded as she made a regal gesture of dismissal.

Alec laughed, this time it was the boisterous, exuberant laugh that Dawn always associated with him. "Definitely takes after her sister," he said to himself as he bowed again to Queen Dawn and walked away.

Dawn made sure he was out of sight before stepping back into her room and closing the door. At the _click_ of the closed door, all the strength fled from the young girl, and she sagged heavily against it, her hands covering her face.

She was relieved that her efforts at humor just now had been rewarded: Alec and the others had enough to worry about without her adding to it by saying she had a "bad feeling". She took a deep breath and brought her hands away from her face. "I'm fine," she whispered to herself, her eyes squeezed shut. "I'm fine and everything is going to be okay. There's nothing wrong. I'm fine." She said this to herself a few times, gaining confidence with every repetition. Carefully, she opened her eyes.

Her reflection, and its pale, haunted expression, called her a liar and she saw that her hands were shaking.

She didn't understand what was happening, it made no sense at all to her, but she was past the point of caring as she brought her hands back up to her face. Against all reason, logic and knowledge, she cried, until there was nothing left in her but a hollow feeling in her stomach, cold and clammy.

Dread.

Alec descended the stairs and walked into the kitchen. Buffy was seated at her "breakfast nook" as she called it, casually eating Christmas cookies while Joyce was cutting up more cookie dough with an unusually large knife. Joyce smiled when she saw his look of confusion at the knife.

Alec gestured. "Nice knife," he said casually. "What's the occasion?"

"The dishwasher doesn't seem to be working," she offered as an explanation, "So I make do," she held up the knife and gestured with it to an ornate cutlery block on the table, filled with other large knives, "Carbon steel knives, carving set of twenty."

"Full tang I'd wager. Are they as sharp as they look?"

Joyce smiled, enjoying the other man's interest and attention to detail.

"I picked them up in China while I was on a purchasing trip for the gallery. You can't get them here: the full tang and the steel quality make them too strong and sharp to be classified as 'kitchen utensils' so they're considered 'dangerous weapons' by customs," Joyce's smile turned wicked and expectant as she told the tale.

Alec took the bait. "So how did you manage it?" he asked.

"I said 'difficult' not 'impossible. You'd be amazed what you can import if you list it as part of the exhibit," she confessed with a grin.

Buffy scoffed at her mother. "I'm pretty sure one of you is corrupting the other, but I'm not sure which," she commented, rolling her eyes, as she turned to face Alec. "But, yeah, Mom was psyched about those knives. We actually started eating a lot of bagels and lox just so she could use them a lot." Buffy suddenly had a wicked smile of her own as she turned her attention back to her mother. "And then came the day she learned that they had to be sharpened. Often."

"Oh, don't remind me!" Joyce lamented. "Fortunately, though, for me, I have a daughter who, besides using her magical gifts for fighting monsters, can occasionally put them to use helping her poor, overworked mother."

Buffy nearly choked on her cookie and Alec laughed out loud.

"Okay, I know I'm going to regret asking this: but why not just use a regular knife?" he asked Joyce.

Joyce smiled patiently while favoring him with a look that was usually reserved for well-loved idiots."Because then I wouldn't be able to use my cool, smuggled, Chinese knives," the older woman told Alec.

Dawn entered just then, in mid-explanation, and Joyce's expression became parental. "Besides, someone keeps forgetting to wash the dishes," the older woman added in a near-casual (though nowhere near enough) tone as she fixated a "mom" look on Dawn.

Dawn for her part ignored her mother and smiled innocently at Alec. "Hi, Alec, you did save me a cookie, right?" she demanded in that imperious tone again.

With exaggerated care, Alec slowly picked up a warm cookie from the plate and, putting it down on one of the smaller plates on the table slowly, handed the whole thing to Dawn as if it were a Faberge egg. "Your cookie, milady. Please, milady, don't shove me to the floor again," Alec pleaded in his most Dickensian voice.

Dawn giggled and covered her mouth with her hands as Buffy sent her sister a wry look before turning to regard Alec.

"I told you, you needed hazard pay to take care of this little nightmare," The Slayer admonished him affectionately as she reached out and tousled Dawn's hair. Dawn responded by sticking her tongue out at her, which was covered in half-digested cookie goo.

Buffy made a face. "Oh yeah, the honeys will be banging at your door ASAP with that little display," she said with a snort. Dawn shrugged and went back to her cookie.

Alec snickered at their antics and walked over to the stove to get some cocoa for himself when he noticed an odd smell. He inhaled once, twice, the scent was very faint. _ Methane? _he thought, frowning. Shaking his head, he poured some cocoa for himself. Adding a couple of marshmallows, he joined the others at the table.

"So, what are your plans for Christmas dinner, Ms. Summers?" he inquired.

"Oh, I don't know, Dusk. I can't seem to make my mind between turkey and ham. Plus, I need to work on a guest list," Joyce replied forlornly.

Alec chuckled in sympathy. "If Buffy's planning on bringing everyone, you're going to wind up feeding half of the living population of Sunnydale," he commented, and paused a moment, before adding in his trademark sardonic tone, "And possibly one or two of the walking dead."

Buffy socked him in the arm for this transgression.

"If Spike is planning on attending," Joyce replied with an uncomfortable shrug, turning her attention to Buffy. "Is Spike planning on attending?" she asked, clearly tentative.

Buffy smiled in consideration and shook her head. "Spike isn't big on turkey, mom. It's okay. I promise that only the living will be eating Christmas dinner this year," she assured her mother.

Joyce smiled, perhaps a little relieved. She clearly was uncomfortable with her daughter dating a vampire that she'd once hit with an axe. But, if Buffy wanted to do that and was comfortable and well treated, what right did she have to complain?

_ At least she's never dated a psychotic robot, _ Joyce thought to herself with a touch of grim humor.

"Chances are, he will stop by, Mom, but he won't linger," Buffy added hurriedly as soon as she saw her mother's expression begin to tense again, "He tells me he makes a mean pecan pie," Buffy added, chuckling at the thought of Spike cooking. "He also tells me you have to be over twenty-one in order to eat it." Joyce smiled a little at that.

Alec chortled. "Likes to 'spike' his pastries, does he? No pun intended, of course," he commented.

Buffy shot him an amused look. "No pun intended at all, of course. And yes, something like that, dear, sweet brother," she replied, her sarcasm getting lost over the sound of the pipes which had picked that moment to start groaning and rumbling loudly. She frowned and sniffed the air. "You smell something?"

He nodded. "Yes, smells vaguely like methane," he replied as he turned to Joyce, who was headed to the sink to wash her hands, "Ms. Summers, do you have a septic system or anything like that?" Alec asked her.

Joyce shook her head as she twisted the knob on the sink, frowning as no water came out. "No, we use public water. Which doesn't seem to be – UGH!" she cried out as black ooze splattered over her hands. The stench of methane and rot was now overpowering.

Dawn made a face. "Mom, what IS that?" she asked.

Buffy and Alec were both on their feet and slipped instantly into "combat mode" as their friends had called it. It had become habit for the pair, cultivated by a shared and intense dislike of being caught by surprise on the Hellmouth. Heightening their awareness of the immediate surroundings and each other whilst, simultaneously, tuning out the rest of the outside world, had allowed the siblings to gain a Zen-like focus and bond in battle which was used to devastating effect upon their enemies.

Now walking almost in unison: Buffy's nimble gait lightly contrasting with Alec's, heavy, powerful stride, they flanked Joyce protectively as she wiped the foul smelling goo off with a dishtowel.

Joyce turned to look at her daughter. "I don't know, honey, it just came ou –," she began.

And with a groan of tortured metal, the whole faucet tore itself free from its base and shot up like a bullet sending plaster and metal shrapnel flying as a geyser of black ooze spewed volcanic ferocity into the air.

Joyce shrieked and fell back, Dawn knocked her chair back as she moved to tend to her mother. The sink began filling with the vile substance that was bubbling up through the drain, thick and black, the stench was overwhelming.

Suddenly, something writhed in the pool of muck and some sort of pseudo-pod lashed out and wrapped itself around Joyce's neck hoisting her high into the air.

"Mom!" Buffy cried out as she dashed to her mother's rescue wrapping both of her hands around the tendril that held her mother and trying to pull it free with all her might.

Alec however raced to the table, and with a single movement, snatched up the knife Joyce had been using. It was surprisingly heavy, but perfectly balanced and strong, he could tell that instantly, and he also knew that the heft would add momentum to his throw.

All this he knew from decades of experience and was processed in a single second even as he reared back and launched the blade from his hand in a smooth, over the shoulder throw, sending the knife hurtling towards the dripping tentacle that was crushing the life out of the poor woman.

The knife scythed through the air and carved neatly through the viscous appendage just missing the Slayer's hands and spraying muck against the wall.

Joyce dropped to the floor hard as the tentacle and its hold on her was severed. She choked and coughed, and a high-pitched wail of pain reverberated through the room as the creature retracted the now-stump of the tentacle back into its body. Buffy dropped to the floor and sheltered her mother's body with her own.

"Mom, are you all right?" she asked, nearly hysterical. Joyce, still coughing, nodded weakly.

"Buffy? We have company!" Alec yelled.

Buffy frowned, Alec sounded worried. She'd never heard him sound worried

_ What could possibly-? _ she thought as she began to turn her head back around.

And then she saw.

A shapeless, dripping form was rising up from the ooze: the slime congealed and flowed until it took the form of an androgynous human torso, entirely without any kind of detail and missing a head. Like an abscess, the form continued to grow and swell, with a sound and smell akin to the contents of a septic tank brought to a thick boil.

Buffy choked back the rising tide of vomit in her throat as she tried to turn her eyes from the gruesome spectacle: it seemed to last hours yet she knew it was only heartbeats.

Alec tore his eyes from the thing with an effort, and turned his head to take in Dawn's state: the girl was afraid but still lucid, still in control. "Dawn! Take cover!" he yelled.

Without missing a beat, Dawn flipped the table onto its side, spilling cutlery heedlessly all over the floor as she ducked down behind it, rising only enough to peek over it at Alec. He smiled at her encouragingly and took a moment to admire the young girl's composure.

Abruptly, a new sound began. Alec whipped his head around to confront the thing that had now completely consumed the entire counter with its girth.

Something writhed and squealed beneath the "skin" of the abomination. Portions of the creature continued to bulge and pop even more loudly and with a wet, tearing sound, as if diseased flesh was being pulled from an incredibly large bone: a head, horned and monstrous, the head of a demon, _birthed_ from the creature's body with a high-pitched squealing sound. The sound deepened to a loud roar that shifted its pitch even higher, until the intensity was akin to a legion of claws down a huge blackboard. The thing brushed the ceiling now with its new head. It appeared almost like a huge, slimy gargoyle as it hunched over to fit in the increasingly cramped kitchen.

For a moment there was silence as the creature took a moment to acclimate itself to its new body. Buffy and Alec had time to exchange a grim look.

"This is going to suck," Buffy commented.

"Yes. Yes it is," her brother-in-arms replied.

And then the creature opened eyes of glowing green and dove at them, reaching for them all with dripping, grasping hands as it flowed out of the sink to land with a splattering _thump_ and a loud cracking sound as the tiles beneath it were crushed into powder underneath its weight. It had no legs, its lower portion was nothing more than a thickly corded tendril of slime that terminated somewhere in the ruin that had been the kitchen sink.

The thing reared up like a great snake before them. Suddenly, clefts burst from its body, oozing and raw. They flexed and puckered and from them came an burbling alien chorus of voices.

"Give us the Key," it said.

Buffy couldn't believe what she was hearing: it's voice wasn't just once voice, she heard the voices of men, women, and children in that voice; both young and old. A thousand different people's voices, different accents, and tones and pitches, now speaking as one voice - its voice. As the Slayer's mind was forced to comprehend the Cthulhonic nightmare that towered above her, she realized that those clefts were mouths and her mind reflexively grasped the truth before it could shy away from the horror it would bring - these were the voices of the consumed, those that were made "part of a larger whole". Buffy nearly went stark white with the evil of it all.

"Bite me," was Alec's only response to it.

Both the Slayer and the rotting monstrosity turned their respective heads and in perfect unison, they both stared at Alec in sheer shock at the audacity and the black fury he had put in those two words. Taken aback by Alec's eyes, which now writhed and brimmed with darkness, and the tone of his voice even darker than his eyes, both Buffy and the monster actually hesitated a moment., as if unsure that violence involving this man would be a wise thing.

Then, the creature attacked. It let loose with another inhumanly high-pitched shriek, deafening in its volume, causing windows to shatter.

The Summers' women clamped hands over their ears at the awfulness of it. It set their teeth grinding and caused their eyes to clamp so tight that tears, stinging like liquid acid, were squeezed out from under their eyelids. It was all in vain as the pitch and pain of the creature's awful shriek chewed through their bones and made their blood boil.

A tendril of darkness lashed out and severed the creature's head from its body, silencing it abruptly.

Alec stood in the center of the room, calm but wary, as he observed the creature writhe in its death throes. Tiny threads of darkness that had insulated him from the creature's sonic bombardment withdrew wiggling from his ears and slithered up into his hair to vanish completely.

He had only taken his attention from the beast once during the attack; a quick glance to verify that everyone was still okay, that they couldn't see the strands of darkness that had flowed both into and out of his body. He now turned to scrutinize them closely: Buffy was getting to her feet and Joyce had apparently taken shelter with Dawn behind the upturned table.

"Well, it appears-," he started.

He never got a chance to finish the sentence; a ropy tendril of slime slammed him hard against his back and sent him flying across the room to smash into the kerosene heater with enough force that it broke. Fuel gushed onto the floor as man and heater lay crumpled in a kerosene-soaked heap, very still.

"ALEC!" Buffy cried out.

The thing hissed from a newly reformed head and snapped at her with wide, fanged jaws, like a snake's. Buffy dodged the bite and, pulling back, launched a punch with all her slayer-granted might, right down the things throat. It blasted past the creatures open, dripping mouth, down its slick throat and burst out the back of its head.

The creature wailed in pain and Buffy smiled grimly while trying not to gag at the smell. "Yeah, choke on it, buddy," she said with a snarl, flexing the muscle in her arm, determined to do as much damage pulling her way out as she did punching her way in, and with a stab of pure fear, she realized she couldn't retract her arm; it was stuck in the tar-like viscosity of this thing's body.

A new head formed as the old one melted back into its body, trapping Buffy's arm in what was now its torso. It peered down at her struggles to get free with something approaching amusement.

And then it brought its head down and swallowed her whole.

"Buffy!" Dawn cried out as she saw her sister disappear down its throat, having brought her head up over the cover to see what was happening. There was a slight bulge to mark her passage, then nothing at all.

"No!"

The creature jerked suddenly to focus its glowing green eyes on Dawn and they narrowed, hungry and hunting. It raced towards her, emitting another horrible shriek, Dawn had no time to react, the pain hit her like a freight train and she was completely paralyzed as it closed on her. It reached her, jaws open.

And with a roar of maternal fury, Joyce, coming up from behind the table, slammed a meat cleaver half the size of a machete up into the creatures jaw. The carbon steel carved up through the creatures jaw and continued, utterly unimpeded, up past the jaw and all the way up and out of the beast's slimy head. The creature looked…confused, staring at her uncomprehendingly through its now-bisected face.

Joyce hefted the weighty meat cleaver up, taking a moment to hold the blade before its glowing green eyes, before bringing it up over her head and squeezing it tightly with both hands.

"You get the hell away from my daughter," she snarled and she brought the blade down with all the might of a mother defending her child.

The head came away entirely and landed on the floor with a rotten _splat_! Overextended by the force of her blow, Joyce lost her grip on the knife, which tumbled down the now-exposed trachea of the decapitated beast which had collapsed in a heap, now thumping and twitching, making wet, painful sounds. Without taking her eyes from the beast, Joyce reached behind her, feeling for her daughter.

Dawn took her hand and wrapped her arms around her mother's waist, staring coldly at the thing that had killed her sister. "It's not dead," she warned her mother.

Joyce nodded and, still focused on the creature, carefully knelt down and clutched several of the other razor sharp knives that had spilt onto the floor when Dawn had tipped the table.

"It will be," Joyce answered in a quiet voice that promised a long and torturous death for the thing that she had seen killed Buffy, her little girl; the thing that had taken her baby away from her.

"Good," Dawn responded in just a quiet a voice as her mother raised the first knife up.

And then the thing _spat_ at Joyce through one of its tiny, cleft mouths.

The slime struck the woman with the force of a cannonball knocking her off her feet and sending her flying backwards past Dawn to slam into the wall behind her. The slime hardened over her face and she couldn't breathe or see as she beat it with her hands, blind and suffocating in the dark.

"Mom!" Dawn screamed. Dawn tried to rush to her mother's aid when another glob of slime splattered before her feet. Dawn gasped and jumped back, just in time to dodge a third stream of slime, this one coating the doorway leading out of the kitchen, forming a sticky, rock hard web that effectively sealed her in.

Dawn spared the blocked doorway a passing glance, she wasn't planning on leaving anyway: not with the pain this thing had caused her and her family. Dawn picked up a pair of the knives and regarded the slimy beast with a calm that has defined warriors since time immemorial.

A calm that only comes when a warrior embraced their own death in order to purchase the death of their enemy.

Dawn tightened the grip on her knives.

"So you can grow heads? " She asked the beast's newly-emerging head. "Grow as many as you want 'cause I'm going to cut off each and everyone one of them until there's nothing left of you but a stain," she promised the thing softly. She raised her knives as the creature descended, like creeping death, to face her.

She met its eyes with hers, defiant and strong and murderous. "You killed my family, you son-of-a-bitch…" Dawn spat and, quick as a flash, her delicate hands plunged the blades into first one and then both of the creatures glowing eyes. Fast as a butterfly beats it wings, she twisted the knives, flexed and bent them before tearing them free of the creature's slimy face.

The wail of pain the horrid thing emitted was nearly drowned out by Dawn.

"…you're going to pay for that!" she finished in a scream of raw, animal hatred. She gathered up another pair of knives and stalked towards the creature. It was already trying to grow a new face, she noticed. She also didn't care at this point.

"I'm not done with you yet, you over-grown sack of slime," she snarled, squeezing her knives in white-knuckled hands.

The slimy demon-headed thing only hissed at her, a low contemptuous sound as its face began to repair. It continued to hiss as Dawn brought her knives up and it began to steadily increase in pitch and volume. Dawn then realized that it was going to emit that screeching cry that it used earlier: that it would paralyze her with agony; cause her bones to go rigid and her blood to howl and boil and while she was incapacitated by the excruciating pain, this thing would come to her and it would kill her, as it killed Alec, Buffy, and her mother.

Dawn knew all these things in an instant, but her weapons did not waver. As the hiss began to reach its peak, she spoke quietly,

"Give me your best shot."

"Me first!" a voice called out and the creature's hiss abruptly died in its throat. It gurgled and flowed as fast as it could to see what was happening to it, even as it felt its power start to wane.

Dawn's eyes widened in shock and her heart clutched at an impossible hope. But she couldn't see anything past the creature's bulk. With a jolt, she instead raced to help her mother, who was flailing weakly at the substance on her face.

Alec stood where the kitchen sink had been. The sink and the rest of the kitchen countertop were now completely submerged in the pool of black ooze made up of the bottom part of the creature. Unhurriedly, he retracted a tendril of darkness, invisible against the dark color of the slime, and held up a metal object: the twisted, badly mutilated form of a kitchen sink faucet.

"Clog in the loo can ruin anyone's day, mate," he said with a vicious grin. Tossing the broken fixture away, he began to steadily advance on the creature. "Throw in a clogged drain and cinched up pipes, well there's just nothing getting in…" he continued to inform the oozing, reeking monster casually. It began to back away from the man; it began to shrink and its putrid skin began to lose its fluidity, the slimy hide becoming dry and brittle-looking.

Alec stopped before the now-recoiling beast, and smiled up at it, a smile nearly as vicious as Dawn's had been earlier,

"…Or out." He finished.

"Alec?" Dawn called out in desperate hope. She and her mother, who was shaken but breathing thanks to her daughter's careful work with the knife, still could not see past the creature's bulk in order to learn who was speaking, "Alec is that you?"

The answer was all she could have hoped for.

"Right here, luv," Alec called out to her past the beast between them, "just letting Beastie here know that it's closing time." He raised his voice as he addressed the ooze monster. "Closing early due a busted tap and broken pipes," he continued to taunt the slimy thing. "Don't have to go home then, but you can't sleep here."

The creature, now only a fraction of what it had been in size, hissed at him as it tried to somehow make it past him, back down the drain, back to its home.

"Nuh-uh, mate," Alec said, "there's no going home for you tonight."

And then, Alec attacked.

The creature reared back as he leaped upon the monster and, conjuring darkness from his hands, wrapped bands of shadow around the creature again and again and again, drawing them tight.

Dawn cried out in joy, followed quickly by fear at the sight of him grappling the rotting nightmare.

"Alec!"

Alec couldn't spare any attention to answer her at the moment, instead he continued to wrap thick ropy tendrils of darkness around the thing, weaving a cocoon that was invisible against its murky black body but was as strong as steel - steel that was rapidly constricting.

"Get you good and snug there, eh, Chief?" Alec quipped with a cruel laugh, "'Snug as a bug in a rug' as they say!"

Suddenly the creature shifted tactics, no longer trying to escape; it reformed around Alec, forming coils of its own. Alec gasped as he felt the folds of reeking slime begin to constrict, squeezing the air out of him and making it impossible for him to draw breath.

"Alec!" Dawn called out again, seeing what was being done to him.

The creature slithered and brought its head down to eye level with the man trapped tight in its coils. The man's breath came in shallow pants, his eyes were beginning to flood red, and the sounds of bones creaking, as they were pushed closer and closer to their breaking point, became audible. The oozing fiend at that moment may have felt a moment of satisfaction deep in its cancerous heart.

That feeling fled the instant Alec looked at him…and grinned.

"Snug enough then, pillock?" he asked in short, pained breaths. The creature hissed again and opened its mouth to bite…

…and its torso came apart as Buffy burst from the dried-out skin of the beast; now stretched too taunt and tight in the act of constricting Alec. Like poking a hole through a thin sheet of paper, Buffy's slayer-strong fist had blasted clean through it.

"That was disgusting!" Buffy cried as she hacked at the shreds of flesh that still clung to her, using none other than her mother's Chinese meat cleaver that had been last seen tumbling down the trachea of this very creature. "I'm going to need to bathe for a month!"

"Buffy!" Dawn and Joyce cried out. Rushing to her, they hugged Buffy desperately, completely unmindful of the layers upon layers of decomposed slime and rotted muck that caked the Slayer.

"I missed you guys, too," Buffy said quietly, holding them tight.

"Sis! Your assistance would not go unappreciated!" Alec called to her, still trapped deep within the beast's coils. The creature apparently still had some fight left in it, it seemed, even after being eviscerated by Buffy's emergence.

"Work, work, work," Buffy quipped, trying to regain a bit more of her confidence after being swallowed.

Alec smiled slightly; he could feel the coils loosening already. He'd be free in a moment.

And in that moment, the fangs of the creature struck deep into Alec's shoulder. He screamed, loud and long as he felt fire lancing through his body.

"No!" Buffy cried out at the sight of the demon's fangs plunged deep into her brother's body. With a cry she charged the beast, cleaver in hand and started hacking furiously at it.

"Why! Won't! You! Die?!" she howled in frustration as blow after blow carved out chunks of decayed plant matter, putrescent fluids and heaps of rotting muck, apparently to no effect.

"Buffy!" Alec screamed.

Buffy looked up. Even from here she could see Alec was in bad shape; he look flushed and feverish and his body wracked with spasms.

"The…the light!" he rasped.

Buffy looked up and saw the light. And knew what she needed to do.

Taking the cleaver she threw it at the kitchen light which had somehow managed to survive the last few minutes. The pale yellow light the only source of illumination in the otherwise dim room.

Buffy's aim was on the mark and the light exploded in a shower of glass and sparks. "You're not afraid of the dark, are you?!" She cried out in defiance to the monster as blackness, thick and complete, blanked the room. In that one moment where the last of the light had faded, she heard her brother's quiet reply.

"You will be."

The creature began to scream at that point, not hiss or screech but scream through all its mouths, a high, horrible scream, a sound of ultimate suffering and mutilation inflicted on another life form. It was liked hearing a year's worth of torture crammed into a span on seconds all in the pitch-black darkness of the room.

Buffy closed her eyes at the wailing sounds and at the ones following afterwards; wet, ripping noises, tearing and angry; killing noises. They filled the room and the smell of methane grew so strong she could barely breathe.

Buffy scrambled blindly on her hands and knees to the ruins of her breakfast nook and, finding her family, huddled there in the pitch-black and darkness of her kitchen, filled only by the bloody sounds of death. Sweaty hands, warm and familiar, found hers; hands of her mother, her sister. These hands found each other and squeezed tightly.

"What's happening?" Dawn asked, sounding afraid. "Where's Alec?"

"Alec is fighting it, he's okay," Buffy assured her then quietly to herself she added. "I hope."

"Buffy, the knives, they're not here anymore. All of them are gone," her mother whispered to her in the darkness urgently. Buffy gingerly felt around on the floor, not wanting to cut herself. Her mother was right; every single blade that had been in the cutlery block on the table and had spilt onto the floor when the table was tipped over was missing.

"Where did they go?" Buffy asked, a little foolishly.

"I took a few, like, four?" Dawn replied.

"And the cleaver, that's five, so there should be fifteen or so razor sharp blades somewhere in our immediate vicinity," Buffy countered, getting frustrated.

"Hang on, I have a light," Dawn whispered.

"Dawn! Not a lighter!" Joyce whispered. There was an edge of stark terror in her voice, "Not with all the gas and kerosene fumes!"

"No mom, a flashlight. Geez, give me a little credit."

Dawn clicked the little light on; it was a small flashlight, not particularly powerful but after the overwhelming gloom of the last few minutes, it seemed as bright and cheering as the sun.

"Gimme that!" Buffy demanded, snatching it away from her sister. Ignoring Dawn's look of outrage, Buffy broke cover and hurriedly began scanning the room for some sign of her brother or the rotting fiend that had been grappling him,

"You know the kitchen seems a lot bigger than I remember," she commented to herself as she moved through the wreckage.

"It's the dark, playing tricks on you," a voice rasped back to her. Alec.

Swinging the light around, she scanned a patch of darkness that was slowly receding from the flashlight's little beam, like ants scurrying away from water. It revealed what she was looking for: there was Alec, propped up in a sitting position against a wall, wounded but still alive. There was the creature; Alec had it by the throat it looked. And there was…

"Oh," Buffy commented, "I guess I know where the knives went."

Fifteen individual tendrils of darkness clung to fifteen knives plunged deep into the creatures body. From the raw number of stab wounds that Buffy could see, it looked each knife had been used more than once on it.

Alec looked to be in great pain, the tendrils of darkness were all anchored to his body; arms, hands, legs, shoulders and they quivered with tension and strain. Strain showed on his face as well, he had gone very pale and his eyes held no humanity in them, still being nothing more than twin pools of inky blackness. When he spoke, little trickles of darkness, like tears, leaked out from his eyes, jostled by the movements of his mouth. Buffy could see that his teeth and tongue were both stained black as well.

"I feel pretty," Alec commented dryly.

"You look it," Buffy replied with a small laugh.

"You need….to burn it, sis," he told her weakly.

"What are you talkin-?"

"You. Need. To. Burn. It. Buffy," he repeated, enunciating every word with painful intensity as he shifted so that Buffy could see him more clearly.

Buffy's eyes went wide: The beast was still wrapped around him and it was still alive.

Alec gripped it by the jaws and was holding it steady; she could see it straining to get at him though. Through the wreckage of what was left of its face, she could still see teeth trying to edge closer and closer to the young man.

"I can't…let it go, Buffy. You need to burn it. Before it regenerates," he whispered and Buffy could, in fact, see it beginning to knit itself back together, as if being exposed to the night air helped heal it.

_ No, not the night air. Sunnydale air. Hellmouth air. _she thought, _ Wait a minute, what night air? _Buffy looked around the kitchen and gaped: the entire back wall of the kitchen, where the sink had been, was gone, completely decayed by the ooze. She panned the light around: all the adjacent walls had been destroyed and even large portions of the floor were missing.

"What the-?" she started.

"When it emerged," Alec explained in short, pained pants, "it used the house as a fixture, an anchoring point. The walls, the floors, the ceiling, it glued itself to it all to help stabilize it. I'm sure it also was rotting away and consuming whatever organic material it could find: food in the kitchen, basement," he smiled weakly, "If you had a roach or mice problem before, I'd say it's been pretty well resolved."

Buffy laughed again, it sounded hysterical. "You know, I thought this place seemed bigger during the fight. Talk about a 'binge eater'." She looked around at the destruction in shock. "I guess we're just lucky he didn't have the time to eat the whole floor or the ceiling or something," she added.

At that point the entire house seemed to groan, like a wounded beast - a wounded beast that would collapse and kill them all at any minute.

Alec glared up at the house ceiling balefully, trying to ignore the teeth inches from his face and hungry. "Yeah. Lucky," he commented bitterly.

"Buffy? Did you find Alec? Is everything all right?" Dawn's voice came from behind them. Buffy spun the light around and then frowned in confusion; the light didn't penetrate more than a foot or so.

She turned to her brother, questioningly, "Alec-?" she began.

Alec held up a hand. "It's a little shadow-play. I didn't want them to see this," he answered bleakly. A tendril of darkness slithered out form the shadows around him and carefully picked up a shattered piece of something smooth and brightly colored, holding it up to the light. They both recognized it easily: a piece from the cookie plate they had all eaten from earlier this evening, when this was still a kitchen and they were all still happy and safe in their home.

Alec sighed angrily and the shadow hurled the broken shard away. Ignoring it he looked up at Buffy intently. "It's regenerating Buffy; I can feel it getting stronger. Right now, it is feeding on all the microscopic life in the air, whatever it can get: skin particles, pollen, air-borne organisms, all of it. It is feeding from them and they are making it strong again," Alec's voice took an even darker tone as it dropped down to a whisper, "and something else, in the air and in the earth, is feeding it too."

The beast lunged suddenly with a gurgling growl. In a flash, Buffy wrapped an arm around it and pulled it back away from Alec. Alec's entire body was shaking with strain.

"Do you see?" he asked her.

Buffy nodded slowly," Yeah, yeah I see. And I know what you're talking about. But you can't ask me to set my own brother on fire!" she yelled out.

"Buffy? Are you all right?" Joyce called out from beyond Alec's veil of gloom.

"The darkness muffles sounds as well as light, sis," Alec explained, "But not forever, we need to do this and do it now if we want to spare Dawn and your mother the sight of it."

Buffy looked utterly lost, "But what do I tell them?" she asked.

Alec sighed. "Tell them the truth, sis; that the slime of this thing," he offered, gesturing with his head towards the drooling, reeking jaws next to his head, "gave me a chemical burn from its corrosive slime."

"It's a lie!" she countered, sounding aghast.

"Then it's a kind lie!" Alec snapped at her, his patience spent, "Buffy, this thing is going to be back up to fighting strength far sooner than any of us will be. That happens, and I will bloody well guarantee you that it will only pause in abducting Dawn long enough for it to rot the rest of us down to liquid and slurp us up for lunch!" For a moment Buffy looked hurt by his words, but then, that had been his idea all along: get her strong, get her cold, get her ready to do this.

"What do I need to do?" she asked simply.

"Tell your family to get down and stay down until you come and get them. I'll thin out the dark a little bit to make that possible," he began.

Suddenly, the creature began to thrash wildly, slinging rancid spittle everywhere, saturating both siblings in the process.

"Do it!" Alec growled through gritted teeth, his arms felt ready to snap like kindling.

"Guys? Hit the deck!" Buffy yelled out into the dark.

"Why?" came back Dawn's voice, "what's going on? Where's Alec?"

"Just take cover and stay put!"

Silence answered her that time. Buffy strained her ears; she thought she could hear her mother gently coaxing a vehemently-protesting Dawn to take cover.

Alec laughed a little, it sounded like it hurt to do so. "You have a delicate touch, sis," he joked. He tried to give her his crooked grin, but his lip split with the effort of it and black liquid spilled from it. It made him look ghastly instead and when he saw Buffy pale at the sight, he immediately stopped trying to smile. "Find a place for cover," he told her quietly.

Buffy looked around and found something that would work: the fridge, now toppled over onto its side and having vomited forth its contents, all, of course, rotted into mush. Buffy put a hand down and casually flipped the heavy appliance over, trying to ignore the putrid food,

"Damn it and I had a frappacino in there," she lamented.

Alec chuckled. "Yeah, me too," he said.

"Really?"

"No."

"Oh," Buffy swallowed a lump in her throat, "Alec, how-?"

"I've been soaking in kerosene every since Swamp Thing here…," he gestured again with his head towards the beast which definitely looked healthier than it had a few moments ago, "…tossed me into the heater. All I need is a light," he explained.

"But what about-?" she began.

"Buffy! We. Do not. Have Time," he said forcibly.

For a moment, he reminded her of Giles when he needed to be stern with her. _ Oh God: Giles. Willow! How do I tell them this? How do you tell Giles I had to kill his son? Or tell Willow I had to kill her honey? _

And as if in answer to her unspoken thoughts, Alec looked up at her and began to whisper.

"Don't worry," he assured her weakly.

Buffy's thoughts jolted to a halt as she regarded her brother in shock, "How did you-?"

"What else could you possibly be thinking of at a time like this, sis?" Alec joked. "You can be painfully predicable at times, you know." The smile was softer this time and sad, but all were relieved to see that his lip, at least, did not split again.

Instead, Buffy thought he looked…like her brother and that made it much, much worse.

"Alec-"

"A light, Buffy. I need a light. Please, Buffy," his expression and tone became imploring, "Please do not make me watch you all die. Don't do that to me, Buffy, please. For whatever love you have ever held for me, spare me that much at least." He closed his eyes, too drained to continue on talking.

Alec felt something small, smooth, and metallic placed gently on his leg. Not daring to take his eyes away from the beast for a second, he extended yet another shadow tendril towards it.

The tendril looked thin and pale and it flickered in and out of existence, like a TV screen with bad reception, but it held together and lifted the object up for Alec to see.

A Zippo lighter, with Sid Vicious giving the middle-finger, silk-screened onto it.

Alec laughed when he saw it. "I'll make sure Spike gets this back," he told Buffy.

Buffy smiled, tears flowing freely down her face. "Keep it. I don't smoke anyways."

"Yeah, that'll kill you."

Buffy laughed again, certain that if she did so once more, she would never stop laughing and would lose her mind. She cut the laugh short and wiped at her eyes.

Alec's smiled faded though; he could feel the creature getting stronger. "You ready?" he asked his sister.

"Yeah. Are you ready?" she asked her brother in reply.

"Oh, you know me, I'm always ready," he said casually and the siblings shared a tight smile at his lame attempt at humor, before the creature lurched again and nearly took off his fingers. "Doesn't matter though, this bastard's sure enough ready."

"Well, then we shouldn't make him wait anymore, right?" the Slayer asked.

"It would be unforgivably rude," the young man agreed.

"Yeah. Hey, Alec?"

"Yes, Buffy?"

"I love you."

"I know, sis."

"Do you love me, too, bro?"

Alec smiled slightly and studied her face; it was study in sheer agony and Alec was struck by how much it resembled Dawn's face, not an hour or so earlier, and he felt a strange sense of déjà vu. With great care, he used his arm to gag the beast and prevent it from snapping his head off. He then reached out to the young woman. With a broken, little sob, Buffy dove for his hand. She caught and clutched it desperately, squeezing it so tightly; he was worried she would break it.

"Of course I love you, dummy," he told her.

Buffy almost laughed again but stopped herself. She felt as if she were ready to burst at any moment. "Okay. Good, I just needed to make sure you hadn't forgotten," she told him.

"No worries there. Better get behind cover now, sis."

And the Slayer did the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life: she let her brother's hand go, crawled over to the fridge and got behind it.

Alec flicked the lighter open and placed his thumb on the wheel. He noticed that the creature, still choking on his arm, had began to slowly but inexorably unhinge its jaws and was beginning to widen its jaws enough to swallow both, his arm and him.

Alec paid it no mind as he called out, "Hey, sis?"

Buffy's voice came out from behind the fridge; she had no intentions of having to watch what happened in the next few seconds. "Yeah, bro?"

"One request?"

"Anything."

"Take a bath, you look a frightful mess."

Their shared laughter, high and loud and defiant, spared them both from having to hear the loud _flick_ of the lighter. It could not, however, protect them from what was to be heard next.


	12. Chapter 10 What Lies Beneath

The door to the Magic Box burst open, causing everyone within to jump: Willow's head shot up out of whatever book she was reading. Xander, who had been dozing quietly with his head on the table, lurched to wakefulness with a startled sound, Anya, who had been using him as a pillow, sounded even less pleased than he did. Even Spike and Giles, normally unfazed by the abruptness of life on the Hellmouth were startled. Only Angel, amongst them all, was already up on his feet and headed towards what had suddenly appeared in the doorway.

Though even he was not prepared for it.

"We need your help," a scorched and battered Dawn told them. She was both bloody and bruised, her hair a tangle of slime and blood from a head wound and her clothes were soiled beyond all recognition.

For a moment, everyone just stared at her, uncomprehendingly. Dawn's expression took a frantic, angry look before she barked, "NOW!"

That command, like a gunshot, set everyone else on their feet. Angel had a head start; he took Dawn's arm, placed it around his shoulder and helped her stagger from the doorway to a chair upon which she collapsed in a heap. People began buzzing around her, a thousand questions from their lips:

"Bloody Hell, what's all the noise about-?"

"Where's Buffy, Dawn, what's happened? Is your mother-?"

"Alec? Is Alec with you, Dawney-?"

Dawn brought her hands up over her ears, squeezing her eyes tight and trying to blot them all out; there were so many voices, so many people demanding to know things from her, demanding answers from her, it was more than she could bear.

And then the questions abruptly ceased.

Buffy and Joyce, in even worse shape that Dawn, slowly came into the room, cradling a large bundle in their arms, wrapped in black cloth: wisps of smoke trailed lazily off it and it reeked of fire and death.

Spike looked confounded. "What in the blazes…?" he began.

And then, a sleeve came loose from the smoking bundle, declaring that the cloth was actually, a jacket: a full-length black woolen duster.

And then they knew. Then they knew everything.

"ALEC!" Giles cried out and rushed to Buffy and Joyce.

Spike moved faster; grabbing, nearly tearing the bundle out of the exhausted women's arms and, shoving his way past everyone else, stalked near the table. With a single, brutal movement, he swept the table clear of books and leftover pizza; it all came crashing down to the floor.

"Baby…?" Willow whispered, staring with wide, uncomprehending eyes and her face the chalky white color that only comes with severe shock.

Xander rushed over to Buffy. Anya looked on, a little irritated at her boyfriend's show of concern. "Buff, what happened?" he asked fervently. Buffy looked at him, her expression was shell-shocked and it shook Xander to the core to see it. His friend, the Slayer, Buffy, looked broken.

She didn't say anything, just shook her head and sat down in a chair next to Dawn and Joyce and stared at the smoking bundle now on the table.

"Mate?" Spike whispered quietly, his teeth gritted with the effort of keeping his tone level. He took a firm hold of the cloth and tensed his arm, ready to jerk.

A hand as cold and strong as his, clamped down on his arm. "No!" Angel shouted, squeezing Spike's arm into immobility.

"Piss off ANGELUS!" Spike roared. "He's my best bloody mate!"

"You can't-!"

"Get out of my way, I need to see my son!" Giles roared, stalking past them all, prepared to shove his way heedlessly past the two furious vampires to get to his son.

Angel spun around and grabbed the man. "Rupert, no you can't just yank it off!" he yelled at The Watcher; the effort of attempting to grapple both a grieving father and an enraged vampire clearly beyond him at the moment.

The three men's shouts ran together into a miasma of noise.

"He's my son!"

"Rupert, listen to me! If he's burned-!"

"Let go of me you great, flaming ponce before I tear your fangs out the back of your head-!"

"He's right," that voice, Buffy's voice, dead and hollow but audible over everyone else, silenced the argument. The three men stopped to look at her and she slowly raised her head to face them as she spoke, "He's right, Angel's right, Alec was burned."

Willow sobbed aloud then; the confirmation that that smoking, reeking bundle was indeed her beloved, broke through her shock and shattered the young woman's composure. She sank to the floor, weeping.

Dawn, sitting across from her with her head hanging, then looked up at the crying red-headed girl in a heap on the floor in front of her. Dawn slowly, painfully, reached out and touched Willow's shoulder. Willow's hand snaked up and took hold of it, squeezing tightly, through painful, shuddering cries.

Suddenly, she looked up at Dawn: her eyes wet but now-filled with a crazed, desperate light. It matched Willow's tone as she spoke, "Dawney? He's okay though, right? Alec's okay? I mean, we can fix him, right? Right, Dawney!Right….?!""

The last word was sobbed out but still Willow desperately, agonizingly, maintained eye contact with Dawn, frantically searching the other girl's face for some…small shred of hope.

And then Dawn began to cry.

With an agonized wail, Willow tried to scramble to her feet, grasping unthinkingly at the air in vain for purchase as she tried to hoist herself up, staggering to her feet

"ALEC!" she screamed. Her feet slid out from under her and Willow crashed hard to the tile floor. Bruised and blinded completely by her tears, she would not be stopped though. Instead she crawled, clawing her way across the floor, her nails bent back and then broke with loud, snapping sounds, but she didn't even seem to notice. So determined was Willow to go to him, to Alec, that if she had to break every bone in her hand, in her body, she would still go to him.

And then Dawn, half-staggering, half-sliding on her feet and knees, came to a skidding halt in front of Willow, bent down low and gathered the other girl in a tight hug.

"Let me go! Let me go! I have to go to him, I have to fix him! I have magic! I can fix him! I can save him! LET ME GO!!" Willow snarled and thrashed and screamed and Dawn held on tightly to the other girl until the fight drained out of the witch, and she crumpled, shuddering silently, her body curled in the fetal position.

And Dawn just held her as they grieved for the man they both loved.

"In Vietnam," Angel began, "I served under this…crazy Colonel with air cavalry, first of the ninth. He loved napalm, used it all the time." Spike and Giles just listened, the latter took off his glasses and squeezed his eyes tight at the mention of 'napalm'.

"One night, he used too much; the wind caught it, something caught it, I have no idea what. But it blew back on us and a couple of the guys on the ground took it full on." Angel swallowed; a dry, reflexive swallow full of anxiety, and continued, "I remember… what they looked like, lying there on the ground. I remember watching the medic trying to tend to these… smoking, peeling objects that used to be soldiers."

"This little stroll down memory lane going anywhere, mate?" Spike asked quietly.

"I remember there was one who'd pulled some canvas, some tarp that'd been near when he'd gotten burned. He had it pulled over himself like a blanket, probably because the breeze on his skin felt like hell. And after it'd been a while, the medic came and pulled it off him." Angel looked up at them both sharply before finishing.

"And his face came off with it."

"Oh…sod!" Spike said, breathing out hard.

"Get me a pair of scissors. And some cool, but not _cold_, water," Giles instructed with a voice sharp enough to draw blood, "and some alcohol, please. And also the scissors, from the first aid kit, in the back."

"Yeah," was all Spike said as he went to get them.

Giles turned to Angel. "How many of those men survived?" the Watcher asked the vampire calmly.

"None of them did," Angel told him simply, looking him right in the eye. "Including that Colonel. He had a little accident the next night."

Angel's tone left absolutely no question as to what or who had been responsible for the Colonel "accident".

Giles's tone also left nothing to question, turning to look at the smoking shape on the table, as he replied,

"Good."

Hours later, the last thread was cut and it was time.

Giles had worked with all the care and skill of a surgeon; gently snipping and cutting away at cloth that had bundled and stuck and clung until it formed a cocoon, within which, his son lay, possibly dying if not already dead. The only sign of life was the occasional shifting from inside the bundle and every now and then, a wheezing, whispering breath, like dead leaves blowing in a weak breeze.

Giles put the scissors aside; there were faint traces of blood upon them. Not all that needed to be cut away could be separated from flesh.

The librarian-turned-shopkeeper looked more like a combat surgeon now: his sleeves had been rolled up, tweed had been cast aside and his glasses were smudged with blood and smeared with sweat and grime.

But his hands were steady, remarkably steady as was his expression through it all. One could almost think he were cutting swaths of fabric to be tailored into pants, rather than what might be his only son's burial shroud.

"There. It's done," he announced to no one in particular. Everyone however was huddled around the make-shift operating table, now splashed with puddles of water and alcohol and all of it had a slight red tinge that no one tried to pay attention to. No one had made a sound: not a weep, nor a moan, nor a question or even a breath, it seemed. All was still.

"Do it," Buffy finally said in that dead voice she'd had since she arrived.

Giles nodded and gestured to Angel as he spoke, "Angel, will you please hand me those tweezers?"

Angel took the instrument from the first aid kit and, wordlessly, passed it to Giles.

Giles gingerly gripped a corner of the fabric and slowly, carefully, began to pull. There was a sound, like cellophane wrap being pulled apart and everyone shuddered at it, save Giles, who remained calm and focused as ever.

Inch by agonizing inch, Giles gently peeled bits of fabric away from his son's mangled body. The sound grew louder and the smell grew worse. Little tendrils of steam rose from where Giles parted the fabric: it was incredibly hot and more than once, Giles pulled his hands back, red and stinging.

At a drawn-out instance of the tearing sound, the form suddenly gave a little start.

"You're hurting him!" Dawn cried out. Joyce shushed her as Giles waved the young girl's concerns away with an irritated shake of his head, struggling to retain his focus.

"Rupert," Angel said quietly and pointed.

Fresh blood snaked a path out from underneath the bundle, leaking onto the table to mix with the alcohol and water that had pooled onto the table. Soon, the only color there was the black of the cloth and the red of the bloody water.

"Is he dead?" Willow asked in a whisper. These had been the first words she'd spoken since her collapse earlier than evening.

Giles raised his eyes to meet Angel's. The vampire nodded, they both had the same thought.

"The dead don't bleed," Angel told them simply.

"Then he's alive," Dawn whispered breathily.

Giles didn't answer them: it was time. Carefully, he pulled back the last bit of cloth from the area he thought was his son's head.

And then he almost died.

Steam rose up from Alec, thick and nauseating; like barbequed meat left out in the sun too long. People coughed and wiped at eyes that suddenly stung and were teary or they swallowed back gorge and tried not to be sick at the smell.

The sight was worse.

Alec didn't even look human anymore: his skin was charred dead-black, it flaked off with the slightest contact. Ears, nose, lips, hair, were all gone. Just gone.

"Son…." Giles whispered, broken-hearted.

Xander threw up then, Willow and Dawn clung to each other and trembled violently; Joyce behind them, a hand over her mouth in horror at the sight, but ready if her daughters needed her. Even Spike swore and averted his face from the sight.

Only Buffy, Anya, Angel and Giles kept their gaze fixed on the form.

"That looks like it hurts," Anya observed simply. Spike glared at her until she shrugged and went to go help keep Xander from vomiting out any internal organs.

"How did this happen?" Giles asked very quietly.

Everyone turned to face Buffy, even Dawn and Joyce, who had neither seen what had happened nor had received any kind of explanation from Buffy.

Buffy swallowed hard now and opened her mouth to speak,

"I-"

"Dad?"

The voice was weak, but it was alive and it was Alec's.

Everyone crowded around as Alec opened one eye and looked up at them all: the sclera was a yellowish-red mixture and the pupil had been damaged, leaving the eye a ruined looking thing, but it saw them all. He saw them all, it focused and he appeared able to recognize them.

'Dad?" Alec called out again; he tried to shift, to bring his hand up to reach out towards the sound of his father's voice. A withered hand pulled itself free of the fabric, leaving bits and pieces of tissue behind and reached for Giles.

Giles took it very gently and laid it back down: it was like holding ash in his hands, the slightest pressure and bits of charred flesh would come away. Giles could feel things shifting and liquefying under his touch and he cradled his son's hand tenderly.

"I'm here son, don't move, you've suffered terrible injuries," he told his son calmly.

"He needs a doctor," Angel spoke up.

"He needs a big, black suit of bloody armor is what he needs: complete with iron lung and chest-mounted Lite Brite," Spike put in.

There was a short jerk from Alec and a quiet sound came from him: a laugh.

"Vader-worthy, huh?" the boy whispered weakly. Then Alec started to shudder and cough, Giles reached out to hold him, to keep him from tearing his fragile body apart with coughing.

"Son? Son? Stay with me," Giles urged.

"It hurts, dad," Alec replied.

"I know, son, I know it hurts: you've suffered damage to your lungs through heat and smoke inhalation, along with carbon monoxide-"

"No, dad. Not my lungs. My shoulder. My shoulder hurts, dad," Alec strained to look at his father through his one ruined eye as he spoke,

"Only my shoulder hurts, dad. Nowhere else, just my shoulder."

"He's suffered heavy nerve damage, Rupert," Angel said quietly, taking Rupert aside. "There's a good chance he can't feel anything anymore."

"Alec?" Willow whispered. Alec's eye swiveled in its socket to peer at her.

"Hi," he rasped.

"Are you, I mean, how do you-?" she couldn't finish.

"Extra-crispy, luv," he replied, a touch of humor in his voice.

Willow laughed quickly. "Is there anything I can do?" she asked.

"Not until we know that none of my body parts are going to come off, if played with too roughly," he replied and then _winked_at her, a painful-looking but entirely roguish, wink; as good as any vaudeville showman, playing to the crowd, could have mustered.

And Willow laughed again, this time heartily. Even Alec chuckled weakly. She bent down low and with infinite tenderness, kissed his charred black brow.

"I cannot lose you," she whispered to him.

He looked up at her with then: his one good eye burned but intent as he said simply,

"You won't."

"The dead don't bleed, but neither do cauterized wounds," Giles said with finality, taking his leave of Angel and coming back to the table, he caught Willow just as she was settling back on her heels. "Just now, Willow, when you kissed him, did he feel it?" he demanded.

Willow gaped at Giles: his demeanor suddenly possessed a volcanic intensity as he impaled her with his stare, his tone was as sharp and cracking as a whip. "I don't know," she stammered by way of reply. "I just-"

And with a jerk of his head, Giles shunned the young girl and focused on his son.

"Son, when she-?"

"Yes, dad, I did," Alec answered.

"Which shoulder hurts?"

"The left; front and back. Like a snakebite."

"Pair of puncture wounds then, through the front and out the back? Clean through?"

Alec shook his head. "No," he told his father. "No, shoulder's broken, but I can feel something wriggling in the wound."

"Spike, knife," was all Giles said in reply.

A flurry of movement and Spike, who had been hovering around the table with everyone else, put a butterfly knife in the other man's hands, blade gleaming.

"It's sharp, mate," the English vampire warned.

"That's the plan," Giles confirmed as he scrapped the edge of the blade at Alec's shoulder, clearing away dead skin. Alec winced suddenly and Giles put his glasses back on as he peered at what he had uncovered: a pair of bloody wounds symmetrically spaced, deep and red.

"There we are," Giles said with a sigh.

"Big snake," Angel commented as he joined Giles in scrutinizing the wound. "There's the source of the blood loss," he added, pointing at the leaking wounds. Giles nodded and braced himself.

"What are you going to do?" Willow asked.

And in a single fluid movement, Giles slide the blade into the wounds.

Alec lurched nearly upright but Angel had been prepared for the reaction: he clamped a hand down on the wounded boy, as firmly as he dared, holding him in place and keeping him from thrashing under his father's ministrations.

"What are you doing?" Willow cried out.

"You're hurting him!" Dawn echoed.

Giles ignored them both; he worked the blade all around the wound, digging deeper and deeper as he prodded and pushed.

And then he felt something push back.

"Jar," Giles demanded.

"Here," Xander replied as he emptied out a tiny jar of herbs he'd taken from one of the store displays and handed it to the man. Giles took it with a grunt of gratitude.

Meanwhile, Anya frowned at Xander.

"You know, that's shoplifting?" she said testily. Xander, trying to remember how much he loved his girl and also how amazing she looked naked, put on the kindest tone he could as he addressed her,

"Ahn…" he began.

"…shut up or I'll kill you," Spike finished for him, with a growl.

"What he said," Xander added, turning his attentions back to what was happening on the table and doing his best to ignore Anya's look of extreme displeasure.

"Just saying…" she muttered to herself.

Meanwhile, Angel held at the ready whilst Giles poked and made tiny, stabbing motions with the knife over and over again. Finally there was a_crunch_ and something bulged momentarily up from underneath Alec's burnt body.

"What the hell is that?" Spike asked flabbergasted.

"Let's find out," Giles replied. "Angel?"

"Spike, take over," the vampire instructed. Spike nodded and took Angel's place at the thrashing boy's shoulders, holding him down as best he could without hurting him.

With his free hand, Angel helped Giles coax the wiggling bulge close and close to the surface, out from underneath Alec's skin and with his other, helped Giles gently coax the wiggling bulge out from underneath Alec's skin, herding towards the hole in his shoulder.

A final stab and the wiggling stopped. Alec went rigid, then limp. Giles looked up and shot Spike a sharp, inquiring look.

"Still among the living, Rup," Spike assured him.

Carefully, Giles pushed the blade as deep into the now-still object as he could. He felt resistance, resistance and then a _pop_. Little rivulets of black, foul-smelling fluid began to dribble out of the wound.

Giles spoke, without taking his attention from his work, "Angel?"

"On it," came the reply. Angel dabbed gauze, cleaning as much of the reeking ichor away from the open wounds. It was a safe bet that the substance would do Alec little good if any appreciable amount was left to seep into his bloodstream.

"What's happening?" Willow asked. Dawn looked up too.

"I think we hit the prize at the bottom of the box," was the only response offered, courtesy of Spike.

With slow, steady hands, Giles pulled the knife out, bit by bit until he felt resistance. Angel reached up and peeled the flaps of bloody skin back, making the hole as large as possible without hurting the boy further. Giles nodded his thanks, and pulled the last of the blade out.

A bizarre hybrid of flat-worm and leech was skewered on the tip of the knife. It was about three inches long and darkish-red in color with streaks of black and green.

"What the hell is that?" Spike repeated.

Suddenly the thing gave a shudder and lurched, flexing. Spike jumped back as did most everyone else save the Summers' women and Angel.

"It's still alive!" Xander yelled.

"No, it's not," Angel said quietly, "It's moving, but it was never 'alive'."

"Alcohol," was all Giles said.

"We're out," Angel informed him.

"Here," Spike said, thrusting a flask at Giles, "Keep it: 1814 was a terrible year for scotch."

Giles nodded his thanks and placed the worm/leech in the jar. It was still thrashing, trying to wrest itself off the knife blade. But when Giles poured the scotch onto it, it began to screech, a thin high-pitched wail.

Dawn and Buffy both lurched at the sound. Angel caught the reaction and frowned in question, but neither of them offered any sort of explanation.

"Little bastard can't hold his grog," Spike said with a sneer at the thing drowning in scotch. Giles said nothing. Instead, he sealed the jar, and putting it and its thrashing contents to the side, took the flask and splashed it over the wounds in his son's shoulder. They bubbled and fizzed and putrid, yellow foam began to rise from them.

"Infection," Angel commented dispassionately.

"Yes, fortunately for us though, these creatures seem to respond poorly to alcohol," Giles replied.

A few moments later, it was all over. Alec laid still and his breathing seemed easier.

"He still needs a doctor," Angel commented.

"No…" Alec's voice replied.

Everyone stopped to look at him. Both of his eyes were open now and he certainly seemed more coherent.

"No, not a doctor," he insisted, his voice sounding stronger with every moment.

"Son, are you certain?" Giles asked, concerned.

Alec nodded before rasping, "Willow?"

"I'm…I'm right here, Alec," Willow assured him, coming up to the table to stand beside him. "What is it?"

"A spell, that healing spell, you used it when I broke my arm a few weeks back," he whispered.

Willow frowned. "Ummm, yes, I remember that. But that was a broken arm, baby, not…not all THIS," she said helplessly gesturing at Alec.

"'Size matters not'," quipped Spike helpfully.

"She lied," Alec retorted from his prone position, earning a grin from the blond vampire. Alec turned his attention back to Willow and spoke with fervency, "You can do it, Willow-Witch. I promise you."

The young girl let out a long-heavy sigh. "Okay," she said finally. Gently placing her hands on Alec's chest, she closed her eyes and began to chant.

"Goddess Hecate, work your will and weave your spell; Mend bone and blood, knit skin and sinew, and mend heart and breath whole again," taking a sewing needle from her pocket, she pricked her finger and placed a drop upon Alec's breast.

"With this needle, I do mend the heart of my heart," she whispered. Then, she moved her finger slightly, dripping a single drop of blood on either side of the first, flanking it.

"With this needle, I mend the breath of my breath," she continued. Finally, she dripped a single drop of her blood upon Alec's brow.

"With this needle, I mend the soul of my soul," she finished, pulling her hand away and watching intently.

Nothing happened.

Spike scoffed as he spoke, "Well, that was catchy, put it to music and you'd have a right nice-"

And Alec's entire body lurched into an upright position. He howled, a wail of agony and ecstasy and overload. Everyone nearly jumped out of their skin.

"Uh, is this supposed to happen?" Anya asked.

"I have no idea!" Willow replied frantically as she turned her attentions to her lover. "Sweetie?"

And without warning, Alec dug both his hands deep into the flesh of his face and began to tear the black skin clean off. In great, greasy handfuls, Alec pulled and peeled and tore at the skin, tossing it aside to splatter onto the floor.

"I'm going to throw up again," Xander announced.

"Yes. I am going to 'throw up, again', too," Anya commented, grammatically incorrectly, but as it turned out, quite accurately as they both vomited.

Alec brought his hands to his face and, in a final loud scream, dug his nails in at the brow and peeled every last bit of black skin from his face. The ruined mass sloughed off into a heap on the floor, with all the rest. He sat there for a while, panting heavily, hands over his face, bits of black skin still clinging to his fingers.

"Son, are you all right?" Giles asked.

"Honey?" came Willow's voice.

"Alec?" that was Dawn's tremulous tone, he knew that instantly.

Slowly, Alec removed his hands from his face and looked up.

Bright red and raw, without a single hair upon it, Alec's face was, nevertheless, whole.

"That feels a little tender," he put forth mildly.

The entire room erupted in cheers. Willow dashed forth to hug him tightly.

"Careful! Careful, luv. Still a little tender and crispy," Alec warned her.

"But alive," she whispered in his pink ear fiercely.

Alec smiled and nodded. "Aye, still alive, baby," he assured her, also whispering.

"Never leave me!"

"Not in a million years, Willow."

"I love you, Alec."

"I love you, too."

Willow smiled and kissed his tender cheek gently. "You better, or else I'll turn you into a newt!" she threatened direly.

Alec sighed. "Yes," he admitted, "I imagine you would." And then they were kissing and hugging and laughing: two young people in love, who had come through the dark and found each other at the end.

A chiming noise sounded suddenly in the store, the bell on the little door signaling that someone had entered.

"Hey, what'd I miss?" Faith asked.

Everyone stared at her for a long time.

"What?" she asked defensively, holding up two large plastic bags. "I brought sushi," she offered by way of placation.

"Good," Alec commented straight-faced, "I can't handle anything cooked right now."

A short while later, Alec, who had eaten nearly his own body weight in sushi moments ago, and Willow had gone to bed. Everyone was thanked repeatedly for all their help with Alec and everyone else in turn understood that the couple required some "alone time" after the ordeal and they were willing to oblige the couple.

Midnight came and went. Everyone else had squared away for the night as far as sleeping arrangements went and pretty soon, nearly everyone was asleep.

Nearly everyone.

Buffy sat on the front stoop of the store, staring up at the sky: the moon was bright and the night cool and crisp, a clear sky with no promise of the snow that surely had to come soon.

"You were awfully quiet in there tonight, luv," Spike commented as he stepped out of the dark near Buffy. "Quiet during the bad times is one thing, quiet during the good times afterwards though…" Spike shook his head in consternation.

"So, Angel's not the only vampire who can do that whole 'I appear from the shadows' trick, huh?" she asked in a tone that was usually reserved for starting fights. Spike nearly went for it; nothing got his non-existent blood pressure up like the mention of his grandsire's name.

Instead he simply asked, "What happened out there tonight, Buffy?"

Buffy looked up at him in surprise: Not 'Slayer', not 'pet', nor 'luv'… Buffy. It was rare for him to call her that.

"I set Alec on fire," she told him. She was surprised how easily it just came out of her.

Spike just nodded. "Okay, why?" he asked.

And so she told him all about that night and how it had ended. How Alec had just gone up in flames, how the force of the explosion, caused by all the methane and by the creature's detonating as well, had nearly broken every bone in his body, how it had fused him to the wall and she'd had to pull him free, and the way he smelled and looked and how he felt and what it sounded like.

"Okay, luv. I hear you," Spike interrupted as his lover's tone grew more frantic. "A bad night all around."

"Yeah," Buffy replied.

"Doesn't sound like you set him on fire though, baby," Spike commented thoughfully. "Sounds more like he did it to himself to deal with the beastie."

"That's what he said," she replied dully.

"But?"

Buffy sighed. "He asked me to lie, well, told me is more like it," she confessed. "He told me to not tell anyone that I'd done this, that instead the creature had burned him with its acid."

Spike scoffed. "Safe bet that was before he realized exactly how thorough a mess the fire was going to make of him. A big difference between acid-burnt and crispy-critter," he replied.

"He wanted me to lie, though, to all of you: to Willow, to Giles, to you," Buffy went on as she looked up at Spike. "And he asked about it so…"

"Easily," Spike finished. "Casually."

"Yeah."

"And that bothers you."

"It really does."

"Why?"

Buffy thought a moment before answering, "Because the people we love, we should trust enough to be honest with."

"Sometimes, the truth hurts though, love," Spike pointed out.

"I think lying just makes it worse," Buffy replied. "Especially lying to the people you care about."

There was a long silence after that.

"There's no way Red's spell could have done all that, that fast," Spike said quietly.

"I know," Buffy replied.

"What does that mean?"

"It means…we still have some work to do, if we're going to be honest with each other," Buffy answered.

"You love the guy, right? 'Brother you never had' and all."

"I really, really do," Buffy admitted, whispering now.

Spike wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close; she offered no resistance and soon lay against his chest out there on the doorstep of the store.

"Then take it from me, baby. Let him do this the way he needs to," he advised. "After all, if these people are family, we can afford to let them keep a few secrets."

Giles closed the door to the office and stood a moment, alone in the dark.

And then he promptly threw up.

For a while, he crouched there, hunched and heaving over the wastebasket next to his desk.

_Tonight my son almost died,_ he thought to himself.

He opened the desk drawer with a key from around his neck, kept hidden under his shirt. There were three objects within the drawer, he removed two of them: a bottle of scotch, and a small crystal, about the size of a snow globe.

For a while, Giles stared at them both. Then, as if reaching a decision, he took the bottle in hand and began to pour a drink for himself. And then another. And another. And another after that.

When the last drop of amber liquid trembled and then fell free from the mouth of the bottle into the glass below it, Giles tossed the empty container aside carelessly; it clanked and rolled noisily against the floor.

He picked up the glass full of scotch in one hand and the crystal in the other. Downing the drink in a single motion, he then turned his attention to the crystal.

"Hello, Ethan," he said simply.

A beat and then a new voice spoke.

"Why, Ripper! After all these years! Why, I haven't seen you since I changed you into a demon and your little slayer tried to gut you. How did that heal by the way?"

"May I assume then that it wasn't a glamour I saw the Initiative hauling away like garbage?"

"Hmm? Oh, the white hats? No, sorry to disappoint: basic doppelganger spell. Just swapped my face out with some unfortunate sod and went on my merry way. I imagine that after the spell wore off, whoever the spooks did eventually lock up was quite unhappy. And they say no man is imprisoned unjustly in the Land of the Free," Ethan's voice chuckled darkly as he said this.

"I didn't make contact with you, Ethan, so that you could laud your supernatural prowess," Giles growled.

"No, I imagine you didn't, Ripper," Ethan admitted. "But judging by the way you're speaking I'd be forced to say that not only have you had copious amounts to drink, dear boy, but it doesn't seem to have improved your mood a lick."

"I'm coming back out of retirement and going active," was all Giles said.

There was a long silence.

"What's happened?" Ethan asked; all traces of humor and jest gone from his voice.

"My son was very gravely injured tonight," Giles explained.

"Diedre's son?"

"Yes."

A pause.

"Really no need to come to me with this, Rupert," Ethan's voice said through the stone, "Membership amongst The Brethren _is_ for life, after all."

"You heard about what happened between Quentin and I?" Giles asked.

"An over-blown bureaucrat with delusions of grandeur, no one has any reason to listen to a word that he or his cronies have to say, I assure you."

"Then I have your support?"

Another pause, longer this time.

"Yes. Yes, Rupert, you have my support," Ethan said finally. "I'll pass the word that you've 'come in from the cold', as it were."

"Just that easily?" Giles asked suspiciously.

"Just that easily," Ethan confirmed.

"Tell me why."

"Two reasons: One, I always liked Diedre, she had a good heart. Didn't deserve what you did to her."

"No. No, she didn't. But she's dead now, so helping me won't mean anything to her."

"Ah, but the boy. Helping her son, I believe, would be something she would appreciate."

"Very well. And the second reason?"

There was a final pause; much, much longer than any of the others.

"You're not the only one with something to lose anymore, Rupert," Ethan's voice said in a tone Giles had never heard from his friend-turned-nemesis.

"What do you mean?" Giles asked.

And then, Ethan laughed.

"Poor sport, Ripper, you've only answered one of my questions to my answering of two," Ethan admonished the other man in that sing-song taunting tone he only took when he was about to do something really horrible.

Giles braced himself. "Ask," he said simply

"Have you taken Lily out of her box yet?" came the response.

The crystal made a sound like wind chimes when it hit the wall, shattering into a thousand rainbow shards. Giles, struggling to regain his self-control, sat back down in the chair heavily with a sigh. He took his glasses off and pinched the skin at the bridge of his nose, taking long deep breaths, calming himself.

Then he reached into the drawer and removed the last item from it: a sleek, vicious-looking firearm.

It fit the man's hand like a glove. His fingers explored every groove of its worked surface, remembering each niche and millimeter of surface, like a well-remembered lover.

Finally he turned it over and looked at the inscription underneath.

NEVER FORGET. There was a date and an etching of a flower: a lily, entwined amongst the lettering.

"Your favorite flower," Giles whispered quietly to himself, lost in the past. "I've never forgotten. Not for an instant, not even at the end, not ever. I have never forgotten the words."

Giles put the gun down and spoke into the darkness, into the dust where only ghosts could hear him.

"To the joy that magic brings, Diedre…" he said quietly.

_And to magic joy brings back, Rupert_ he heard her voice echo from long, long ago finish.

Giles spent the rest of that night like that: in the past, with only the dust, the dark, the ghosts and Diedre's lily, resting on the table beside him, gleaming and ready to be used, once more.


	13. Chapter 11 Hellbound Hearts

Alec, as if climbing a long staircase, slowly came out of a deep sleep and into a state of drowsy awareness. He became aware of details, the sun shining on his face, the sound of people talking in the next room, the smell of Willow. This last observation caused him to open his eyes and, as he did so, he became acutely aware of the soft touch of Willow's body, pressed against him. He turned to regard his sleeping paramour with deep care and love. For a moment, he felt no guilt about his feelings toward Dawn. That he felt a strong sense of affection and protectiveness to the younger Summers sister was undeniable, but this, this feeling of bliss and contentment, this belonged solely to Willow.

Gently, he reached out to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear; she smiled and made a contented sound. Her eyes slowly opened to regard him tenderly.

"Hey, you," she whispered.

"Hey back," Alec replied.

"Last night was really horrible," she said in a tremulous voice.

"I know."

"I never want to see something like that happen to you ever again."

"Nor do I."

The uncomfortable moment lasted for a while. Willow's lip quivered slightly and Alec feared that she would cry…

…and then she grinned that irrepressible grin, child-like in its combination of innocence, mirth, and glee.

"Then let's make sure it never does!" she said simply.

Alec laughed as he rolled over onto his back with his hand clapped over his eyes.

"Agreed, love."

There was a knock at the door.

"One sec!" Willow called out.

"Oh, goodie - company," Alec said with a groan.

Willow smacked his shoulder lightly. "None of that mister, you are going to be both friendly and social," she insisted.

"Can't I just be one or the other? I can be very friendly so long as I am not required to actually speak," he lamented.

"No, now come over here and be nice."

Alec growled, pulled the blankets over his head, and rolled over, offering his back to his lover.

Willow huffed in frustration at her lover's stubbornness as she shifted her attentions and called out to the door, "Come in."

Xander entered, tiptoeing in an over-emphasized manner that had Willow grinning.

"How is he?" Xander inquired gently.

"He's fantastic, next stupid question," a snarled reply rang out, though not from Willow.

Willow rolled her eyes slightly.

"He's a little cranky," she explained in a condescending, parental tone.

"I was mauled and set on fire. How about a little understanding for the guy that lost his bloody skin?" came Alec's reply.

Xander considered this. "Actually, I would say more 'extra-crispy' than 'bloody'," he commented with a grin.

Willow looked slightly mortified, but then again, she was intimately familiar with her childhood friend's twisted sense of humor.

"Sod. Off. Wanker!" came Alec's reply. Both people in the room could actually hear the words being spat out between gritted teeth.

Willow sighed quietly. She hated it when he got like this; grim and humorless and just way too intense. Fortunately she also knew how to fix it.

Her tone became pleading and soft. "Alec? Alec, please, don't be mad, Xander was just making a joke."

Alec's only response was to curl up even tighter under the blankets, doing his absolute best to ignore her.

"Alec? C'mon. Come be with me. I miss you."

By now, the sound of gritting teeth could be heard audibly in the room.

Willow moved in for the kill. "Pleeaaaaassse?" she said in her most adorable voice, the one that always worked on him.

With something akin to a sigh and a cry of frustration, Alec whipped around to face her. Her face was a perfect study of a pout: lower lip jutting out, eyes wide, eyebrows arched slightly to form an inverted "v" on her delicate face that always made her look endearing to the point no longer supported by the laws of reality.

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeaseeeeee?" she said again, her voice and eyes filled with longing, hope and affection.

Alec uttered a string of words that, had his father heard them, he would have been convinced it was his duty as a parent to wash Alec's mouth out with soap, half-demon or not.

"Does that always work with everyone?" Alec demanded, shooting a look at Xander.

Xander shook his head ruefully. "Remind me to tell you how I lost my entire comic book collection," he lamented before dragging a chair over to sit by Willow, who was tending to Alec.

Some of the color had come back to his face, and the lines of pain had eased, but, as he sat up, he winced in pain and nearly gasped.

Willow nearly leapt from out of bed and took Alec's hands in hers.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" Willow asked, reaching up to stroke his face. He caught her hand and kissed it.

"Extra-crispy," he replied dryly. Xander laughed.

"Yeah, well, you don't look half as appetizing as a bucket of original recipe," Xander said, grinning.

Willow shot him a mildly offended look. "Speak for yourself, Alexander Harris. I think he looks very yummy." She informed him sternly before turning back to her lover with a flirtatious and slightly hungry expression.

Alec gave her a disbelieving look. "You're a rotten liar, woman," he replied sardonically. He tried to swing his legs off the bed and get up, but his strength gave out and he collapsed, nearly tumbling off the couch, until Xander and Willow caught him, helping him down into a sitting position on the edge of the mattress.

"Slow down there, chief, you've had a busy night," Xander chided gently. Carefully, he helped Willow ease the injured man back onto his stomach.

"Yeah," Willow put in, "don't make me kick your ass."

Alec arched a sardonic eyebrow.

"Well, don't make me get Buffy to kick your ass," she amended.

Alec snorted and coughed before relaxing against the pillows. "Are they all safe? Dawn, Buffy, Joyce?" he asked worriedly.

"They're fine," Willow soothed, "a little grimy around the edges, but fine. I'll have Buffy come pay you a visit as soon as she gets out of the shower."

And then, like a British tsunami, Spike burst into the room.

"Here he comes to save the day!" Spike sang out incredibly off-key and grinning.

He dropped into a chair on the other side of the foldout mattress, resting his elbows on his knees as he leveled a finger at Alec.

"I selflessly donated my best scotch in order to nuke the little buggers that had taken refuge in your worthless hide." Alec chuckled as Spike continued his tirade.

"So you'd best be compensating me. If I'm anything even remotely resembling sober come New Year's due to a lack of quality booze, I'm coming for you, mate."

Alec groaned and folded his hands over his head. "Honey, turn the noisy man into a newt, would you please?" he implored.

Willow turned and, pointing a finger at Spike, began chanting in Pig Latin.

"Ix-nay asty-nay ampire-vay," she said with a maniacal cackle.

Spike drew back alarmed. "Knock it off, Red, I mean it," he growled and rose to leave, grumbling. "Sacrifice your best booze for a bloke and he sics his black-magic woman on you in gratitude. It bloody well figures." Muttering to himself, and trying not to let show how happy he was that his friend was okay, Spike left the room.

Alec shook his head and smirked. "One-track mind, that one: sex or booze," he commented dryly.

Willow smiled, her lips curled in a lazy gesture of seduction. "Oh, yeah, and what's on your mind?" she purred.

Alec turned to regard her, aghast, and exclaimed, "You're not serious!"

Willow just nodded. "Xander, can you excuse us for a moment please? I need this man to tear all my clothes off," she stated, sweetly.

Alec's eyes widened. "Xander, if you ever held me as your friend, I beg you - do not leave me alone with her!" he cried.

Xander just laughed, still amazed at Willow's bravado, and held his hands ramrod straight in front of him, Frankenstein style.

"Must. Obey. Witch. Cannot resist. Will not my own. Must obey," he spoke tonelessly, rising to his feet like an automaton.

Willow laughed as her childhood friend lurched zombie-like away from the couple. She then turned to regard her helpless mate. Slowly, she licked her lips, savoring what was to come.

"But what about me having a busy night? And needing to get my strength back? And the whole 'I lost my bloody skin'?" he protested meekly, though a slow grin was starting to creep across his face as he rolled gingerly over onto his back to regard the beautiful woman with amusement. By his expression, it was clear that the pain had diminished, even from just a few moments ago.

Demurely, she gently straddled his hips, mindful of the fresh bandages they'd applied right before bed. Reaching into her pocket, she removed an item that she'd taken the time to retrieve from her dorm room; taken from a box right next to her jewelry box.

"Oh, I'd say your morning's about to redefine 'busy' for you," she promised in a husky whisper, tearing the wrapper off with her teeth.

Alec laughed in disbelief. "Where in the world did you get tha –" He was abruptly silenced as her mouth covered his.

A few moments later, he didn't care anymore.

Buffy, toweling her hair dry, tentatively knocked on the door to the back room, where Xander had left looking slightly dazed.

"Alec? Willow? Are you in there?" the blonde slayer asked.

No reply. She knocked again.

"Go 'way," came Willow's voice through the door.

Buffy frowned. "Guys? What's going on?" she asked.

"Physical therapy. Very conducive to the healing process," Alec replied.

Buffy heard Willow giggling quietly. A slow grin spread across Buffy's features and she shook her head, laughing softly. A stray memory clicked; her mother's telepathic confession of exactly what had happened between her and Giles during that candy incident.

"He SO takes after his old man. A regular stevedore," she commented. Still laughing to herself, she left the lovers to their 'therapy,' which, oddly enough, kept the both of them occupied for quite some time.

Alec rolled over and sighed lazily, awash in a sea of endorphins as Willow made herself cozy next to him, lifting his arm (she was far too weak in the limbs to do it herself so Alec helped) and, wrapping it around her shoulders, rested her head on his chest. Their hair matted to their heads, coated in a thin sheet of sweat, they looked at each other… and, in a drowsy, post-coital bliss, grinned.

"What'cha thinking about?" Willow whispered in sleepy curiosity as she took his hand in his, kissed it and pressed it against her face, cradling her cheek in it.

Alec smiled. "I'm thinking about how I have this amazing woman very much naked on this somewhat lumpy fold-out couch-mattress-"

"Mmm, I think we worked most of the kinks out, hot stuff," Willow interrupted with an impish grin.

"May I continue, please?"

Willow made a zipping movement over her mouth, which was difficult to do with that grin she had plastered on her face.

Alec didn't quite pull off a convincing appearance of being annoyed as he cleared his throat and resumed speaking,

"As I was saying, I'm thinking about how I have this amazing woman, who is currently very much naked, on this horrible, though considerably less lumpy, couch-mattress, …" Willow's grin got even wider at that bit, "…that I happen to love very much," he finished, grinning his crooked grin.

"You love the couch?" Willow asked in mock confusion.

"No. I love you."

Willow smiled and closed her eyes, savoring his words. No matter how many times he said it, it still made her heart shiver in delight. She leaned in and gently kissed his mouth and Alec reached up to stroke her face, inhaling her scent.

The couple parted and shifted positions, now resting their faces against one another and gazing deeply into each other's eyes, their eyelashes entwining.

Butterfly kisses, Willow had once called them. She smiled perkily.

"Ask me what I'm thinking about," she requested demurely. Alec stretched out an arm, and wrapped it around her; the red-head quickly nestled against him, resting her face on his shoulder, staring up into his face.

"Okay, what are you thinking about?" Alec asked with a smile.

Willow grinned and picked up the top of the sheet, peeking underneath. "I'm thinking how I have this amazing man, VERY much naked, on this not really all that horrible couch, who I happen to love more than anything in the world."

Alec smiled and closed his eyes, deeply touched.

She leaned forward to kiss him, when suddenly, her stomach gurgled loudly, protesting the fact that they'd slept through breakfast. Willow blushed and Alec laughed, earning him a playful swipe from the red headed witch.

"I'm thinking it's time for breakfast," Alec commented wryly.

Willow covered her face with her hands, mumbling in agreement and laughing self-consciously, her face turning the same color as her hair in mortification.

Smirking, Alec stroked her hair, whispering, "It's okay because…" without warning, he jerked the sheet up over his head and dove under it to kiss her bare stomach, "…I love your noisy stomach too."

Willow shrieked and batted at his head under the sheet. "Hey! You leave my noisy stomach alon – Oh!" she exclaimed in surprise; a surprise that quickly melted into a deep purr of pleasure. Alec was definitely NOT just focused on her stomach anymore.

"I guess we can postpone breakfast a little longer," she conceded, breathlessly. Biting her lower lip in amusement, she yanked the covers over her head to join him. Much giggling and various other sounds of delight soon ensued.

Finally, Alec emerged from the back, clad only in a pair of black jeans and the bandages still on his back. Quietly, he padded into the shop area and smack dab into the outskirts of an argument.

"I'm telling you, B, there was something fishy going on with the skipper and his 'little buddy'," he heard Faith declare. Buffy's response was a snort of disbelief.

"You're deeply disturbed, Faith, you know that, right?" Buffy responded. "There was absolutely NOTHING going on between Gilligan and the Skipper. Gilligan was lusting over Ginger. Anyone with half a brain could see that!"

Alec sighed, relieved. While chances were the two were far from being close, they did seem to be on the road to reconciliation. He stepped into full view of the slayers, who were seated in front of a small TV, which was currently showing, not surprisingly, a rerun of "Gilligan's Island." Alec met their nearly identical looks of deep amusement with his inherited 'stiff-upper lip'.

"Top of the morning," he greeted.

Buffy snickered and got to her feet, walking over to him.

"Try 'bottom of the mid-afternoon' there, bro," she said with a toothy smile. "Busy night?"

Alec got a stupid looking grin on his face. "Well, …" he began to say and then decided to let it trail off as he rubbed a hand up and down the back of his neck modestly, and didn't meet her gaze. His face colored slightly.

Buffy cackled in glee, sharing a moment of sibling confidence.

"You animal!" she exclaimed.

Alec placed a hand over his face. "She started it," he mumbled through his hand as a way of defense.

Buffy continued to chuckle as she patted Alec's arm. "Sure she did," she humored him.

Alec glared at her, and then began to chuckle himself. "There is coffee somewhere here, right?" he asked, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice.

Buffy nodded."Right there, over on the hotplate," she indicated, pointing.

Alec made a desperate lurch for the pot of instant cure-all. "Thank God," he muttered, pouring himself a mug full of the lukewarm liquid and taking a long pull from the cup.

Buffy just shook her head, mock disapprovingly. "We really need to talk about this caffeine dependency of yours, Alec, it's not healthy."

Without stopping to put the cup down, Alec gave her a dirty look as he nosily drained the contents of the cup and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Lowering the mug slowly away from his face, he extended a finger on the other hand to point accusingly at the slayer.

"This…" he mumbled around the last mouthful of coffee before swallowing, "…coming from the woman who, last month, pulled an all-nighter fighting Tockra demons and then decided to drink an entire pot of espresso so she could be coherent enough to take a final exam, only to wind up having to run to the bathroom every fifteen minutes?"

Faith laughed at this. "Way to get in touch with your inner Starbucks there, B!" she teased.

Buffy shot her a nasty look and snarled. "Faith, go back to pondering how a coconut radio works, and try to remember that the nice people in the flickering box aren't actually talking to you, okay?"

With a smirk, Faith turned her attention back to the T.V. and continued watching the show.

Alec grinned, but then the expression slid straight into confusion as he scanned the room. "Speaking of 'nice people', where IS everyone?" he inquired.

Buffy explained, counting off on her fingers. "Spike and Angel headed back to Spike's place to wait out the day, your dad went back to his house to check on my mother and Dawn, oh, and he's also planning on stopping at the science lab on campus to see if he can't get his hands on a microscope so we can take a closer look at those parasite thingies we pulled out of your back," Buffy made a face at the memory then continued, "and Xander and Anya snuck out of here around five this morning, I'm guessing to go back to Xander's place." She shot him an insinuating glance before concluding. "My guess is it had something to do with that bag of goodies he picked up at the drug store last night."

Alec snorted. "No bet," he replied dryly.

With a mirthful expression, Buffy headed over to a table with a large plastic bag on it, and held it up for Alec to see.

"Here's a change of clothes," she explained as she put the bag down and walked back over to Alec. "Let's take a look at those wounds, huh?"

"Yeah. Okay," Alec conceded with a sigh, putting the drained coffee mug down as he turned his back to Buffy.

She bent over and examined the bandage then looked up at him. "How do you want this: slow or quick?" she asked him.

Alec frowned and began to reply, "What are yo –"

Without warning, Buffy tore the bandage off her brother's body in one swift motion.

Alec swallowed a scream and squeezed his eyes shut. "Thank you, sis, that was… cool," he gasped in a strained voice, blinking back tears of pain and exhaling hard. "That'll wake you up in the morning," he commented dryly with a shaky smile.

Buffy studied the freshly healed skin. The wound in his shoulder had all but vanished. "Well, you look good to go," she announced as she straightened and leered playfully at him. "Willow must really have the healing touch."

Alec nodded emphatically. "You have no idea," he replied with a little smirk and scratched at the newly healed flesh.

"Thank you, Claus Von Bulow," she referenced with a roll of her eyes, then suddenly swatted at his hand. "Don't pick at it, it'll never heal."

Alec regarded her as if she had gone insane. "You did not just say that," the young man insisted.

Buffy shrugged. "Says you. Besides, I've just always wanted to say that," she smiled and patted his arm before thrusting the bag of clothes into his chest.

He took the bag stoically, giving her a patient look. Gingerly, he pulled out a black t-shirt, which he quickly pulled on and then removed a folded black duster from the bag.

"Best Dad in the world. Doesn't forget a thing," he whispered affectionately to himself. Putting the duster aside, he padded back to the backroom door and knocked.

"Lover? You up and about?" Alec inquired tentatively.

A groggy voice answered, "You're not coming back into this room, unless you're bearing coffee," the voice growled at him.

Buffy laughed and went to pour another cup. Alec took it gratefully from her, trying his best to ignore the barely-constrained hysterical laughter all over her face, and he smiled sheepishly.

"She's not a morning person," Alec offered as an explanation. "Or an afternoon person for that matter," he added thoughtfully after a moment's consideration.

"COFFEE!" the voice on the other side demanded, promising dire repercussions if her wishes were not carried out.

Starting a little, Alec opened the door just enough for a slender white arm to snatch the coffee mug from his grasp and close the door in his face. He turned back to Buffy whose shoulders were heaving silently in mirth.

"She's really NOT a morning person," he reiterated.

Buffy burst out laughing for what seemed like the umpteenth time this morning. It was good to have her brother back.

"Obviously," she smirked and gave him another sympathetic look before her eyes wandered down to his feet. "Good luck getting your shoes," she added.

Alec looked down at his bare feet and groaned. "Thank you," he responded dourly. Girding himself, he knocked on the door tentatively. "Uh, … love?"

"Further negotiations will ensue only with a steady infusion of caffeinated products," Willow informed him through the door. It opened and the slender arm reappeared, dropping the now-empty coffee mug into Alec's hands. The hand made a gesture of dismissal before retreating back into the room and closing the door.

At this point Buffy was howling with glee, earning her nasty looks from Faith, who was still trying to figure out just what were the implications of the term 'little buddy'.

Ten minutes, (and two or three cups of coffee later) a fully clothed Alec sat at a table talking with Buffy, Faith, Willow, and his father, who had just gotten back. Giles had set the Summers women up in a fairly nice motel about a block from here. Wards of signaling and protection had been placed, so, in case there were any further attempts on Dawn, everyone would know and could reach them before the magical enchantments were breached. The shopkeeper also had hung a sign on the front door of the store, claiming that it was closed for the day for cleaning.

Giles took off his glasses and cleaned them. "I must say, Alec, Dawn was really quite upset when I told her you weren't quite up and about this morning," he informed his son, replacing the glasses upon his face and pushing them up onto the bridge of his nose with a look of paternal amusement towards Alec. "I daresay your heroism last night left quite an impression on the young woman."

Alec shrugged uncomfortably and threw Buffy, who was pouring over some sort of demonology book, a look.

"It's a phase, it'll pass," he mumbled.

Willow took this opportunity to look up from her laptop and tease him. "Hmmm, maybe I have competition, then? Perhaps I'll just have to turn her into something icky," she joked as she made a face.

Even though Alec was fully aware that she was joking, a rush of something… aggressive and dark filled him and he gritted his teeth to keep from barking out an angry retort. "Some other time, all right, dear?" he tried to joke back lightly.

Willow smiled unaware of her lover's suddenly roiling state of mind, and went back to the translation program she was working on in order to decipher the book Alec had taken from the Mayor's office.

Alec turned his attention back to his father. "I've got a bit of a radical suggestion," the young man declared. Giles frowned in concentration, focusing on his son as the latter spoke. "I think that Buffy and I should go down into the sewers and try to track this thing, if we can get rid of it, everyone will be a lot safer."

Giles shook his head. "That's terribly risky, Alec, in close quarters like that, and given the fact that we have no idea what it is that attacked you."

"So it's better to stay here and wait for it to take another shot at us?" Alec retorted, fire in his voice. "To blazes with that, I say we go down there and incinerate anything that shambles and oozes that shouldn't."

"Son, try to be reasonable-"

"I'm tired of being reasonable!" Alec roared as he got to his feet. "Reasonable ended sometime between being nearly having my ribcage squeezed into paste and the third-degree burns!

As everyone else was looking at Alec in shock, Giles, very calmly, took off his glasses and began to clean them again before responding.

"I understand that last night was extraordinarily traumatic…" Giles began, "but we do not have even the slightest idea of what is down there."

"Oh, yes, we do," Buffy interrupted. Hoisting the book up, she placed it down for all to see, pointing to an illustration of a creature made of slime and rotted vegetation. "That's what played Santa Claus of the sewer at my place last night. I knew I'd seen a picture of it somewhere," she told them.

Giles leaned forward to study the description. "A… golobulan," he read frowning. "It says here that a golobulan is a greater servant of the forces of rot or decay. They're also known as 'Abominations of Golobulus'."

Buffy frowned. "Who – or what – is Golobulus?" she asked.

Giles put a finger to his lips thoughtfully, before rising from his chair and scanning a bookshelf, searching.

"I know I have it somewh – Ah ha!" He exclaimed as he pulled down a large tome, carrying it back to the table and depositing it the center with a _thump_!

Buffy leaned over to study the title. " 'Codex Borbonicus'?" she read from the cover and looked up at the Watcher, frowning.

Giles opened the massive book as he explained, "The art of the pre-Columbian cultures of the Americas sometimes included something called a codex, which was a manuscript on which they illustrated stories, usually of religious or cultural significance."

"Like those illustrated kids' bibles they have at Sunday school?" Faith asked. Four pairs of eyes lifted in unison to regard her in stunned disbelief. "What? I was raised in Boston: bible-thumper capital of New England. I did a brief stint as a catholic school girl," she clarified defensively.

Alec and Willow went back to paying attention to Giles. Buffy was still having trouble wrapping her mind around that little tidbit of information.

The older man found the page he was looking for and gestured to it, continuing to speak in what Buffy had affectionately dubbed 'Watcher Mode'.

"This page, here," he gestured to a large illustration, "shows the Aztec gods Tezcalipoca," he pointed to large man with green and red feathers, "and Quetzalcoatl, in the form of a green serpent devouring a man, here," he indicated a large, green snake eating a man.

Buffy leaned in to get a better look and made a face. "That looks unpleasant," Buffy commented as she sent Faith a dark look. "Remind you of any former employers, Sunday School Girl?"

Faith snorted and ignored the comment.

Giles calmly, but with a glare that looked to be carved from ice, raised his head from the book slowly, and made eye contact with each of the slayers. They quieted themselves immediately as he continued.

"It's been put forth by anthropologists that stories such as the one recorded here may relate the importance of human sacrifice in Aztec religion, as well as to the Aztec legend that Quetzalcoatl, the exiled god, would one day return to rule the Aztec people."

"Okay, now for the sixty-four thousand dollar question," Buffy asked, "was Quetzalcoatl a nice little deity that loved and cherished his followers and wanted nothing more than peace and love in the world, or was he 'other'?"

Alec scoffed. "Given the fact that this shows him eating a guy, I'm leaning towards 'other'".

Giles nodded absent-mindedly, but he was paying very close attention to the sibling byplay as he continued to lecture.

"Actually some historians believe that the whole story of Quetzalcoatl is based on the exile from Tula, of a priest-king also named Quetzalcoatl in the 10th century," Giles leaned back in his chair thoughtfully. "It was rumored that Quetzalcoatl was exiled for practicing forbidden rites and communion with unnatural powers."

"Like this Golobulus?" Buffy asked.

Giles nodded. "Precisely, after his banishment in the 10th century, Quetzalcoatl headed north into what would later be California. Once there he assembled a cult of followers and began preaching the teachings of Golobulus."

"I know I'm going to regret asking this, but what was Golobulus associated with? What was his thing?" Buffy asked with a sigh.

"Rot. Corruption. Decay, both physical and spiritual," Giles replied instantly.

Buffy sighed again. "I knew I was going to regret it," she lamented.

Alec spoke up. "Hang on," he turned to Buffy, "do you remember, just before that thing showed up, that weird smell?"

Buffy nodded slightly. "Yeah like gas or methane." She looked up at Giles suddenly and asked, "Isn't methane caused by stuff rotting?"

Giles nodded. "Yes, during the stages of decomposition of organic matter, methane is released." He scrutinized the young woman. "You… actually paid attention in biology class, Buffy? How on earth did that happen?" he asked in amazement.

Buffy ignored him as she turned to Alec, continuing. "And when it exploded, the thing lit up like the Fourth of July."

"It was doused it in kerosene first, but still, that wouldn't attribute it exploding like it did," Alec replied carefully.

Buffy nodded. "Yeah, it went up like a big, rotten flambé," she confirmed as she turned back to face Giles. "So, this is what, some kind of ancient Aztec god we're dealing with?" she asked incredulously.

Giles shook his head. "I don't think so. Remember what Dracula said regarding the Hellmouth? He told us that it had spread its roots far into the ground. Maybe it had spread all the way into central Mexico, and what Quetzalcoatl encountered was, in reality, a portion of the Hellmouth. Perhaps that's what Quetzalcoatl, in fact, came to know as 'Golobulus' and that is what he built his religion around."

"Why go to all the trouble of attracting new followers, when you can con your way into acquiring a pre-assembled flock?" Xander commented darkly as he shook his head, squeezing Anya's hand. "Clever."

"Diabolically so," Giles agreed.

"So, let me get this straight," Faith started. "This guy Quetza-whatever runs into something he thinks is this god of rot, Golobulus, but actually is the Hellmouth. He starts worshipping it, he gets caught and booted out, and he heads up to sunny California and starts it all over again?" she finished, looking a little pale. "This is one twisted M.F."

Giles frowned. " 'M.F'?" he queried.

"Yeah, Rup, one twisted motherfu –"

"Faith!" Buffy interrupted. "Thank you, we get it," she stated as she turned back to Giles. "So, after this Quetzalcoatl got his little cult together, only this time closer to the Hellmouth's home turf, what happened next?" she asked.

Giles cleared his throat and continued to read aloud. "Well, it says here that he and his followers engaged in several profane acts: including human sacrifice, ritualistic torture, bodily mutilation, visceral interc –"

"We get it, Dad," Alec interrupted, exhaling hard. "Sick, bad man. So, what happened to them?"

His father shook his head. "It doesn't say. It just says that sometime in the early 11th century, Quetzalcoatl and his followers were wiped out. No one knows by who or how," he shook his head, puzzled.

"Uh, guys?" Willow chimed in; she'd been silent through the whole discussion. "I think I can help you with that." The others rose from their seats and huddled around Willow's computer screen. She gestured to it. "I just got done translating the book that Alec got. It wasn't written by pilgrims, it was written by –"

" – the order of San Miguel," Giles finished, leaning closer to the screen, peering at it intently.

Willow looked at him slightly miffed. "I was going to say that," she said, her voice laced with wounded pride.

Alec smiled indulgently and kissed her head. "Good work, love, you get a cookie," he assured her.

Willow swiped at him lightly with her hand. "Well I WAS," she pouted.

"So, who was the order of San Miguel?" Alec asked.

Everyone leaned in closer to hear as Giles cleared his throat and explained.

"Michael, who, incidentally, wasn't a saint, but the archangel of – amongst many things – battle, was an order devoted to the extermination of demonic creatures. Theologians have long claimed that it was he who cast Lucifer out of heaven during Lucifer's war on God."

" 'Now war arose in heaven,' " Faith began to quote. " 'Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole earth – he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.' -- Book of Revelations, chapter twelve; verses seven to nine," she finished and noticed again the stares of shock she was receiving. "My Sunday school teacher was a Harvard hottie, so I was big on class attendance," she offered as an explanation with a shrug.

Shaking her head in wonder, Buffy smirked in disbelief as the others continued to listen intently. "If he was such a hottie, why'd you stop going?" she asked.

Faith counted off on two fingers. "Two things. One, I hit puberty and decided Sunday mornings were better spent recovering from Saturday night, and two, a little thing called a vow of chastity," she said wistfully, "which is a shame, really. I've heard that priests are great on their knees," the dark-haired girl added with a wicked grin.

Buffy closed her eyes. "Scarred for life. Thank you, Faith," she said with a sigh.

Meanwhile Alec was, at this point, nearly delirious with laughter. "Priests! 'Good on their knees!' " he howled, laughing so hard that tears sprang from his eyes. "Bloody Hell, if I live to be a thousand, may I never forget that one." Reaching over, he gave the still-grinning Faith a high-five.

Willow looked up at him, puzzled. "I'm not sure I totally get it," she ventured mildly.

Gasping for air, Alec put a hand on her shoulder. "I'll clue you in later, sweetheart, let's get back to the matter at hand." He composed himself and cautiously regarded his father, who was looking at them all with a mixture of disbelief and resignation. Alec immediately turned back to the computer screen, but not before flashing Faith another appreciative grin.

Giles cleared his throat, making that clucking sound in his throat that everyone knew translated into 'I'm too British to yell at you, so I'll be forced to kill you if you do not start behaving yourselves.' Once everyone settled down, he began to speak.

"Yes, well, the order of Saint Micheal, was made up of crusaders: Holy warriors, paladins, I suppose, both very strong and very fierce. They traveled around the world, battling enemies of the church, but, unlike those who fought in the Holy Crusades," Giles held up a finger to emphasis his next point, "the order of Saint Michael slew only humans that were completely devoted to the service of otherworldly evil or such creatures as demons and vampires. Contrary to the vast majority of religious orders during that time, they were not interested in converting other cultures. They simply hunted down and destroyed infernal creatures. Now, the history is a little sketchy but it mentions here," he added, pointing to the computer screen, "that the order broke away from the church completely near the end of the Forth Crusade after the sacking on Constantinople in 1204."

Buffy frowned. "Wait a minute, if these guys were such bad-ass priests, why would they ditch the church?" she asked, bewildered.

Giles pursed his lips in thought. "Perhaps their code of conduct could no longer condone the church's actions during those centuries of war," he offered, straightening up from peering at the computer screen. "I can only theorize, but it's not unreasonable to believe that the Order came to regard the church as a corrupt institution after they sacked Constantinople, their own city. It's possible these men believed the church was more interested in increasing its base of power than protecting its followers from demonic forces."

"Yeah, imagine the church only looking out for its best interests and not caring who got burned at the stake along the way," Willow jeered. Several pairs of eyes turned to regard her curiously as she blushed. "Sorry, witchy prejudices at work here." She looked over at Giles, apologetically. "Continue, please."

Giles resumed, definitely looking like he may just hex the whole lot of them into silence so that he could finish getting this out.

"In any case, the Order of Saint Michael followed a code called _Via Caeli, _which roughly translates into 'Road of Heaven.' Apparently, this code taught them that it was not only their obligation, but their holy duty, to combat the forces of evil. And it would seem they were very, very good at their job."

"Pretty hard to fight fanatics, especially the ones that come equipped with equal parts brains and fervor," Alec pointed out.

Giles nodded in agreement, indicating to everyone assembled that his son was exempt from his father's frustration with the constant interruptions.

"So, what happened? The God Squad ran into our boys from Mexico and proceeded to lay the smack down on them?" Buffy joked.

"It would appear so," Giles answered. "Unlike the rest of the church, they did not believe that sorcery and witchcraft was inherently evil, but rather a tool that could be used for either noble or sinister purposes."

"Yay for the order of Saint Michael!" Willow cheered. Alec stroked her head affectionately, as always enjoying her sudden bouts of extreme cuteness.

There was a sudden, deafening _crash_,causing everyone to jump and spin round.

Anya, who had been leaning too far over the table and had managed to knock a stack of books to the floor, was glaring at everyone fiercely, hands on hips.

"Uh-oh," Xander groaned, taking in her posture and knowing instantly what it meant - his girlfriend was _not_ pleased.

Anya didn't even seem to notice the pile of books on the floor as she began to yell. "Oh come on, all of them were murderous, holy fanatics! They did nothing but hunt down nice, innocent demons and cut off their heads or stick swords into them! They all needed to die horrible, screaming deaths. Every last one of them!"

Her tirade had managed to stun all those assembled into silence.

Xander recovered first. "Uhh, ... Ahn? Is there something you'd like to get off your chest?" he asked mildly.

"It frightens me that there might be more," Alec countered.

With a frustrated growl, Anya began to hike up her shirt.

"Anya!" Xander cried. "We talked about when is 'good naked time' and when isn't. This isn't."

Anya glared at him and lifted her shirt up to expose her stomach and a long, angry looking scar.

"I got this back in the 11th century during the sack of Jerusalem," she began, "Your 'holy warriors' were slaughtering everything in sight: men, women and children. Not that I had a problem with that, mind you, I was there punishing an unfaithful wine merchant – " Anya suddenly turned her head to focus on Xander, " – he'd been caught with two tavern wenches and a pirate," she explained.

"Moving along, baby?" Xander suggested.

"Fine," she huffed. "Anyhow, there I was, completely minding my own business and you know, making this merchant swallow everything he sold," again she paused, thoughtful. "You know, I bet he wished that he sold fruit, instead of armor, after the first ten minutes of that."

"ANYA!" everyone cried out.

"What?! She snarled back defensively before she got it. "Oh, right! The nasty men in the armor. Anyhow, there I was, minding my own business, when one of these people stick a flaming sword through me. And of course, being doused in holy water, I got to have a big, ugly scar for the rest of my life, which I don't need to tell you-"

"But you're going to anyway," Alec interrupted.

Anya glared at him. "Which I don't need to tell you," she continued, "is a very long time to have a huge gash on your stomach." She gritted her teeth and added, "And that is why I can't wear a two-piece."

"I thought you said that scar was from falling off a motorcycle back in the '50's," Xander argued, "and that you didn't wear two-pieces because they made your butt look big."

Everyone at the table winced at Xander's tactlessness, but Anya simply shrugged. "That too," she stated. "Anyhow, they were all jerks."

"In any case," Giles continued with a sharp glare at Anya that the ex-demon pointedly ignored, "the order, apparently, was skilled at more than just combat. Sorcery, herbalism, alchemy, even some very basic astronomy and metaphysiology: all learned from the Muslims of that area, many of whom were academics. The knights of this order were scholars as well as warriors and it also states that most of them were highly skilled in the medicinal arts. They often served as healers or apothecaries during outbreaks of disease, much like the Knights Hospitaller. In cases of leprosy, it's said that an acolyte of San Miguel could heal a victim of said disease, using a combination of medical knowledge and the rite of 'Laying on hands'."

"'Laying on hands'?" Buffy reiterated uncertainly.

"Faith healing, B," Faith chimed in. She then began to address Giles, "I dunno, Rup, between the fanaticism and the sorcery, I'd say they sound a lot more like the Knights Templar."

Giles shook his head. "No, the allegations of black magic against the Templars were nothing more than a ploy by the church to seize their assets by King Phillip and Pope Clement the Fifth, in the year 1307, so that they could pay off their debts and secure more power for themselves," he said heatedly. "The Templars are not, and never have been, associated with demons-"

"No kidding," Anya bit out.

"Let me finish," Giles growled, momentarily losing his trademark composure and causing everyone to exchange looks of concern as his resumed.

"These allegations were false, and all confessions admitting otherwise were obtained under extremely questionable circumstances involving an inordinate high amount of duress involving torture. They were betrayed and abandoned by their own superiors and it has been a blot on history since then."

"Wait a minute, didn't the Vatican come across the Chinon Document which clearly stated that the Pope had actually absolved them of any guilt in 1308 and only recanted due to the influence of that king?" Faith argued and then frowned. "And what do you mean by 'The Templars are not, and never have been, associated with demons?' They got axed and the last of their leaders was turned into a charcoal briquette a few years later," Faith finished flippantly.

Giles's face grew dark with anger and he opened his mouth to speak before Buffy intervened.

"Okay, not important right now who screwed whom seven hundred years ago," she stated. There was a pause as everyone calmed down before Buffy addressed the other Slayer, "And how the hell do you know all this?"

"Hot Sunday school teacher, remember?" Faith repeated.

'OH,' Buffy mouthed silently, shaking her head in disbelief at Faith's newest insight.

"Out of curiosity, Dad," Alec jumped in. "How was the order founded?"

Giles, having now regained his composure, focused on the computer screen.

"Well, it's impossible to get a completely accurate answer," he explained. "The legends range from a saint with divine power, blessing a squire who eventually would establish the order, to a knight who received visions and had been branded a heretic by the Church, to the actual archangel Michael himself, handpicking people and training them in the art of battling demons."

Faith whistled low. "How do I sign up for THAT program?" she asked, impressed.

Giles shook his head. "Apparently, one cannot do so any longer," he gestured again to the screen as he spoke, "there's no mention of the order after the thirteenth century. All that remains is a footnote, mentioning that sometime in the mid-thirteenth century, the entire order mobilized to confront a nameless evil that resided…" Giles's voice trailed off, his eyes wide in disbelief. "Good lord," he whispered, stunned.

"What, what is it?" Buffy demanded.

Alec leaned over to read the text as Giles took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly agitated.

"The entire order mobilized to confront an unspeakable evil that resided_La Boca de la Inferno, – _" the young man read aloud. He then shifted his glance to regard his sister gravely.

" – In the mouth of Hell."

"The Hellmouth!" Xander yelped, having calmed Anya down by this point. "The order took on the Hellmouth."

"And they were never heard from again," Willow put in. "Okay, it's official, I'm having a wiggins."

Alec placed a steadying hand on her shoulder, which was meant to convey more confidence than he actually felt at that point.

Giles rubbed his eyes and replaced his glasses upon his nose. "They were no less than five score knights that went to face the beast," he was frowning in consternation as he read, the group hinging on his every word, "there was only one survivor, a young knight, named Esperanza," he stopped and faced everyone. "Apparently, the order considered the sexes equal under the eyes of God, and thus had both women and men serving within their ranks."

Xander smiled a little sickly. "Heh. Well, you know, a knight gets lonely," he joked. The joke fell flat.

"How progressive of them," Alec stated dryly. "Now get to the part where they were all slaughtered."

Giles continued to read aloud. "It says here that Esperanza was driven mad from her experience. Accounts are unclear, but apparently, she spent her last remaining days in a madhouse, raving about…" he squinted in concentration, "… quote, 'a cathedral of flesh' and 'beasts that grew in the belly of the dragon' end quote," he shook his head in dismay. "And then she cut her wrists and scrawled some sort of message in her own blood before dying," he finished, looking a little sickly himself.

Buffy swallowed audibly. "Nice," she croaked. "Any idiot can use a Bic, but in your own blood, that's really something."

"What was the message?" Alec asked quietly.

Giles took a long time before he responded. "Her last words were '_In Vita. __In Vita et Digestium en Carne de la Terra_.'"

Buffy closed her eyes and said, "Yet another thing I'm certain I'm going to regret asking; what does that mean?"

" 'It lives. It lives to devour the meat of the world,' " Giles responded.

"I hate being right all the time."

A long silence passed.

"Isn't anyone else freaked?" Xander asked.

"Yes!" everyone said in unison.

"Glad I'm not the only one," Willow mumbled quietly.


	14. Chapter 12 Secrets Revealed

Giles rubbed his eyes and thought. "You know, it really may not be as bad as it seems," he commented mildly.

Everyone gaped at him slack-jawed.

"I'm sorry, but what alternate universe are you from? What is it, some kind of crazy loony universe? Are you some kind of 'evil Giles' because the one I know wouldn't look at an army of demi-saints getting slaughtered and say 'It really might not be as bad as it seems!' " Buffy ranted.

"Are you quite finished?" he asked her calmly.

"Yes, but only until I think about this again for longer than two seconds. Then get ready for more wigging."

The Watcher cleared his throat nosily in a "please shut up" manner and continued to speak. "Yes, well, that's what I'm talking about. Dracula said that for the first time in its existence, the Hellmouth was vulnerable, yes?"

Willow got it first. "There was no way for the order to win, then," Willow breathed. "Because there was still some of it in its home plane where it couldn't be harmed."

Giles nodded. "Precisely. If the order still existed today, I imagine things would be very different."

"Yeah, for starters, they wouldn't have been turned into demon chow," Faith put in, snorting.

Giles nodded hesitantly. "Well, yes, there is… there is that." He went back to peering at the screen.

A knock on the door interrupted their grim reverie.

"I'll get it," Giles said straightening immediately and, almost dashing to the door, he opened it to encounter a bland-faced man in the familiar brown garb of U.P.S.

"Mr. Rupert Giles?" the deliveryman asked, bored.

Giles nodded. "Yes? Yes, I am he," he frowned. "May I help you?"

The deliveryman thrust a digital clipboard at him and instructed, "Sign on the line, please."

Puzzled, Giles did so, and handed the device back to him. The deliveryman shoved a large parcel into Giles arms.

With a parting "Have a nice day, sir," he turned and left.

Giles sighed. "Pleasure was all mine," he muttered under his breath. "Americans." With another sigh of strained patience, he brought the package to a table, setting it down.

"And what do we have here?" Buffy inquired, a little color returning to her face as she walked over to inspect the new arrival.

Giles shrugged. "I have no idea," he frowned. His tenure on the Hellmouth making him very cautious about opening things he didn't know a lot about.

Buffy leaned over to check its markings. "It's postmarked from England," she informed him.

The Watcher snapped his fingers. "Of course, the diaries!"

He immediately set to work on the tape that sealed the box shut. After a few minutes of struggling, he sighed and turned to Buffy imploringly.

"Buffy, would you mind?"

Keeping her smile in check, Buffy punctured the tape with her fingernails and tore the cardboard box open. Smiling, she held her hand up inspecting the nails, blowing a stray piece of tape from one of her nails. Throwing a wry look back, she called out.

"See, Alec? I TOLD you it wasn't a cheap manicure."

Alec looked up at her, frowning in puzzlement, before smiling and shaking his head, going back to reviewing the information on the screen with Willow. Giles began taking out several small leather bound sheaves of paper, some with what looked like official seals on them, others that looked to be personalized. He quickly separated them into two stacks.

"In this stack," he gestured to the stack of diaries that bore the official emblem, "are the collected Watcher's Diaries, dating back as far as the tenth century; I'll review these. You and Faith review these." He gestured to a second, far larger stack of diaries, each one a different shape and size. Some bound in leather looking quite old, others, no older than the one Buffy wrote in. "These are the diaries of the Slayers that resided in North America and Europe, stretching back to that time." He took a moment to give Buffy a stern look. "Do I even need to remind you that these are priceless and utterly irreplaceable and that damaging one is grounds for expulsion from the Watchers' Council?"

Buffy smiled wryly. "Don't worry, Giles, I haven't forgotten that the punishment for damaging one of your books is a horrible screaming death."

Giles snorted slightly. "Yes, if you're fortunate," he retorted dryly.

Buffy chuckled and shook her head, very carefully picking up the first diary and flipping through it with exaggerated care.

"What about that lab equipment from the campus?" Alec asked, looking up from the computer screen.

Giles shook his head. "Only partial success. I couldn't bring it here, but I did manage to make a reservation for a little later on tonight," he replied, reaching over to a shelf and taking down the jar containing the three parasites. They floated, nearly comatose, in some sort of clear liquid; he brought the jar over to Alec for him to examine.

The young man gingerly took the jar and peered into it. "Charming. What's this they're floating in?" he inquired.

Giles cleared his throat. "Alcohol. Apparently the parasites have some sort of allergic reaction to it, thus rendering them insensate."

Alec nodded. "Can't hold their liquor, huh?"

Giles smiled slightly at his son's ability to take a complex matter and boil it down to a five-second sound bite.

"More or less," the elder Giles commented.

"Could we use it as a weapon? Get enough alcohol to flush this monster out and then roast it?"

"No, Alec, it's still too dangerous to confront this creature directly." Giles sighed, taking off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his noise, trying to breathe deeply and remind himself that this was his son.

"I appreciate your zeal, and your desire to protect your family, but this would be suicide." He began to count off his fingers. "One, we're not even sure there's enough alcohol in all of Sunnydale to flood the labyrinthine passages below the streets-"

Buffy snorted. "I dunno, you should see Spike's booze cabinet. It's huge; I don't see how he got it up the stairs, vamp strength or no."

Giles ignored her as he continued to lecture his son. "Two, we have no idea what it's capable of."

"We learned it hates fire," Alec shot back.

"Yes, and the explosion that would result from using that much fire on a creature that is apparently methane-based would annihilate Sunnydale."

"Look around you, father," Alec gestured out the windows as he spoke. "Sunnydale is already on the brink of annihilation. We need to act I _now /I _ if we're going to avoid being sucked down the drain one piece at a time after this thing recoups from its attack on Buffy's house and hunts us down one by one!"

"Damn it, Alec! Listen to me-!"

"If we don't get down there and kill this thing now-"

"Alec," Faith called out.

Alec whirled on her, his teeth clenched in anger. "What is it?" he demanded.

"Your dad's right," Faith said simply. "Home turf advantage, no idea what it can do, only way to kill it would kill us all in the explosion - even I wouldn't play those odds."

Buffy and Alec both stared at her in shock.

"I can't believe I'm hearing this. Faith advocating caution rather than insane pummeling as she has been prone to do in the past," Buffy commented.

"The past is dead, Buffy," Faith said quietly, turning to face the other slayer. "Let it remain buried where it belongs; keep heading towards the future, and it'll be five by five."

Buffy was stunned. Faith had rarely, if ever, called her by her proper name. She opened her mouth to say something, closed it again, opened it again, then just said nothing, exhaling hard instead and looking away from Faith.

Alec turned to look at this father, locking eyes with him.

"Two slayers, …" the half-demon gestured to Buffy and Faith, "… two vampires, …" he gestured out towards the door Spike and Angel had left through, "… and a girl with her head crammed full of over eleven hundred years of demonic lore, …" continuing to gesture outside, where Anya and Xander had also left, "… a brilliant and powerful witch, …-" without breaking eye contact, Alec whipped his hand around to point his finger at Willow.

The finger looked more like an accusation than praise and Willow shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

"Alec, I don't think-" she began.

"-… A third brawler, who is one of the most competent men I've ever known, …" Alec continued, steamrolling over Willow's words as he gestured to Giles, who was scrutinizing his son closely.

"… And you have me, father, someone who has spent a thou-" he stopped, and suddenly shot a glance at Willow, "-his entire life…" he amended, "…studying the occult and martial arts and who has followed in your footsteps, becoming just as knowledgeable and just as combat capable as you."

Buffy gasped out loud at that, and the others weren't far behind her - none of them had i _ever_ /i heard someone claim to be Giles's equal when it came to knowledge and lore.

Alec ignored them as he held his father's gaze, his tone going from aggressive to conciliatory. "You know as well as I do, Dad, it's out there right now, it doesn't sleep, it doesn't truly need to eat, and it will not stop until we are all dead and this town and the rest of the planet goes to Hell," Alec explained imploringly. "Now is the time to strike, before it has a chance to gather an army of these… converted and consumed beings that were made 'part of a larger whole' to use against us. Because if you've forgotten how dangerous this thing can be, I advise to look in your bin, there's a pile of my scorched flesh that will help remind you that this monster plays for keeps. "

The room was very quiet as everyone stared at father and son.

Giles calmly put his glasses back on his nose, his expression calm, but chilly, as he spoke.

"You are my son, and I love you very much. But you have a great deal left to learn, Alec, and getting yourself killed, or worse, letting your recklessness and lack of discipline get all of us killed, would gain you nothing but a lingering death."

Alec went bone-pale at his father's words. "My… lack… of… discipline?" he said in a shaky tone that literally quivered with rage.

"Yes."

Alec drew a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and opened his mouth to speak words that would give no quarter and ask for none.

Suddenly, there was Willow at his side, gently touching his arm.

"It's okay, baby. Everything is fine. Calm down," she whispered to him, and said something under her breath Alec couldn't understand.

Alec sighed, _ I Well, maybe they're right. I have been a little wound up since that attack and- /i _

He froze, horrified, jerking his head around to face Willow.

"You used magic on me?" he whispered in accusation.

"What?" Willow looked stunned. "No, I-"

"Don't you EVER use magic on me without my permission again," Alec bit out in a tone that had Buffy on her feet in an instant, though what she was going to do was anyone's guess.

"Alec, I just wanted-," Willow tried to explain.

"It is a violation against someone to attempt to twist their heart, or their mind, using magic," Alec spat. "You had no right."

"I'm sorry, but you were getting so mad!"

"Yes. And now I'm mad at you."

Willow's chin trembled at this and she began to cry. Buffy moved to hold her friend close, sending her brother an unreadable look.

"Nice one," she whispered harshly.

Alec looked around the room - Faith, Buffy, Willow, his father, they had all united against him, and none of them appeared to hold to his notion even in the slightest.

"Son?" Giles said quietly.

"Yes, father?" Alec responded.

"I play for keeps, too. Don't ever forget that. Should you leave me no choice, I shall remind you with whatever method is necessary to do so," Giles continued, still very calm.

Alec turned slowly to face his father; he knew a threat when he heard one.

"That sounded rather like a threat to me," Alec commented.

"It is fatherly advice. Should you want more, my advice is simply this: do not be so obsessed with the pain and suffering that the outside forces can cause, that you ignore your own destructiveness."

Alec looked at Willow crying, Buffy glaring, Faith looking confused and angry, and his own father; speaking to him in that cold, dead tone that promised a great deal of pain and suffering of its own to those foolish enough to ignore it.

"Okay," Alec said quietly. "All right. You're right. You're all right: going down there would be folly."

With a cry, Willow tore herself from her friend and dashed into Alec's arms, squeezing him tightly and burying her face in his shirt.

"I just think about losing you, Alec. You're so brave, but you just don't seem to… i _care_ /i if something happens to you and that just scares me so bad it hurts," she whispered. "It's like you think you're invincible, that you're the one person that doesn't deserve saving."

"Shhh, it's all right, love," Alec whispered, stroking the young girl's hair. "Everything's all right now, Willow."

"Everyone receives that which they deserve, in the end, Alec," Giles commented.

Alec didn't even look at his father. Instead he just kissed Willow's hair over and over again as he whispered, "I'm sorry, too, love."

"I promise not to use magic on you ever again," she whispered back to him.

Alec smiled slightly. "Well, you know I wouldn't object to that healing magic when it's called for. Not that I particularly mind looking like a burnt plate of nacho," he joked.

Willow laughed a little and socked him in the chest with her fist.

"Sacrilege. Nachos are never burnt. They are perfect. If they are burnt, they cease being perfect and so they're not nachos anymore," she insisted.

"Thank you for clearing that up for me baby. When all this is over, I promise you the biggest plate of nachos in California."

"You promise?"

"Yeah, yeah, I promise, Willow. I love you very much."

"I love you, too, Alec."

Sniffling, she moved away from him and he let her go. She wiped at her eyes and smiled a little awkwardly.

"Boy, I'm glad Xander isn't here to see me like this. He'd freak," she muttered.

Just then, the door to the shop swung open, heads turned as Anya bounded into the room, leading a very weary-looking Xander.

"Good morning, everyone!" the normally cranky ex-demon exclaimed cheerfully. Generally confused greetings were returned as everyone attempted to return to normal and relax a little.

Alec sneaked a peek at Xander, who was shambling along at a pace that would have made a paraplegic sloth seem frisky in comparison.

"Xander, you look like you've been through war," Alec observed dryly. "All of them."

The man in question groaned a little and collapsed, boneless, into a chair. Anya turned to regard Alec.

"Xander and I had sex many times last night," she informed him. She frowned in concentration. "I'm not sure how many times, I lost count after five," she stated matter-of-factly. Alec snickered, Buffy and Faith laughed aloud.

"Please, not the 'S' word, all right?" Xander groaned and begged weakly.

"Xander, you commando of love, you!" Alec clapped his hands together, laughing, as Buffy came over wiping streaming tears of mirth from her eyes.

"Someone ate their Wheaties yesterday." She turned to Alec. "What is it about impending apocalypse that makes everyone so…?" she struggled for the right word.

"Desperately horny?" Faith supplied helpfully.

Buffy shot her a look. "I was going to say 'distracted', but thank you for that, Faith."

Faith flashed her a sardonic smile. "Oh, any time, B. I'm here for you, sister."

Buffy narrowed her eyes. "That's so very comforting," she retorted, before turning back to Xander who looked like he was praying quietly for death.

"It's a tension releaser," Alec commented dryly. "Although, looking at Xander, here, that might not be readily apparent."

Chuckling, he addressed the younger man. "Well, Xander, if you're feeling 'up' to it, why don't you go limp yourself over to the back room and slip into a nice restful coma?" he suggested wryly. Xander nodded weakly and shambled towards the back.

Anya bounded next to him. "I think I'll go with you, Xander. I feel like a little… privacy," she added with a naughty smile, making the man's eyes widen in an expression of indescribable terror.

Buffy put a hand on Anya's shoulder. "Now, now, let's let Xander have some rest. Remember, if you break him, you can't play with him anymore," she advised, giving Xander a sympathetic look that was laced with deep amusement.

Anya sighed, disappointed, before nodding. "I suppose you're right," she turned her attention back to her boyfriend, who still looked like he may suffer a massive heart attack at any moment.

Anya patted his arm and said, "You go back and rest, and I'll come wake you up in an hour." She smiled and turned away, completely missing Xander's expression of dread, before he slumped his shoulders and marched into the backroom, closing the door behind him morosely.

Alec turned to Anya, amazed. "What did you DO to him?" he asked incredulously. Anya leaned over and whispered something into his ear. Alec's eyes widened in astonishment as he turned to regard the smaller woman in awe and a little fear.

"And he can still WALK?" he exclaimed. He turned his attention back to the closed door of the back room and shook his head in wonder.

"Hardy lad," he commented, before chortling quietly and heading back to the computer.

A few hours later, Faith and Buffy were poring over the Slayer diaries; Alec and Giles, the Watcher diaries; and Anya and Willow were still reading the book on St Michael.

Buffy sighed resignedly, and tossed the Slayer diary she was reading onto the table.

"Nothing, not a thing about the Hellmouth or how to fight it. All it talks about is a few vampires and why the Puritans were a bunch of creeps."

Faith looked up from the diary she was reading, which bore a tie-dye cover.

"You should read this one, B, it's from a Slayer during the seventies. Some pretty sordid details here, including a tryst with some blond vampire at Woodstock and a pitcher of kool-aid," she grinned and returned to the diary.

Buffy snorted. "Terrific, so far all these diaries have yielded are editorials and pornography," she sighed disgustedly then her brain caught up with her. _ I Blond vampire… no, it couldn't be/i _ she thought.

Alec looked up from the Watcher's diary he was reading. "Count your blessings, sis, …" he gestured to the book he held, "… this Sir Reginald, goes on and on for pages about what kind of scones go best with what kind of tea," he sighed and turned to his father. "Was the Council always this… dry?" he asked.

Giles shrugged. "I happen to consider what scones go best with what tea very useful knowledge, thank you," he retorted, a little miffed.

Faith snorted in derision. "Yeah, and if we're gonna invite the Hellmouth over for a tea party, we'll know what to serve it just before it devours the entire world."

Alec and Willow snickered, and even Buffy smiled at this. Anya looked up, a little perplexed.

"We're serving it scones and tea? I want scones and tea," she demanded.

Buffy sighed and turned to her. "Anya, it's metaphorical scones and tea, not real scones and tea."

Dejected, Anya sat down, crossing her arms. "I still want scones and tea," she pouted.

Alec suddenly sat up in interest. "Here's something: a reference to the head of the Watcher organization, ex, actually - 'Alastair de Counde'," he frowned. "Says, here, he was ousted recently too."

Buffy came over to stand at her brother's side, peering down over his shoulder at the book. "Does it say how recently?" she asked.

"No, in fact, it's all very discrete, almost concealed deliberately. It just mentions his name, and another Watcher named 'Abigail,'" he finished.

Faith jerked her head up suddenly. "My watcher's name, the one that died," she whispered, "her name was 'Abby', is that her?" she asked.

Giles shook his head as he spoke. "I doubt it, Faith, for three reasons. One, the diary deliberately makes no mention of when this 'Alastair' was deposed; if it was written fifty years ago, World War II would have been considered 'recently'.

"This book doesn't look like its fifty years old, Dad," Alec pointed out.

"You can thank our superior archivists for that," Giles replied, a hint of professional pride in his voice. Everyone exchanged amused looks at that as Giles began to scratch under his nose, absent-mindedly.

"Okay, Dad, that's one reason; what are the others?" Alec asked.

Giles cleared his throat. "The second is that, often times, when these meetings are held, the attendees go by pseudonyms," he explained.

"For secrecy," Alec said, comprehending, "That makes sense, I suppose."

"That still sounds like paranoia to me," Buffy commented.

"Yes, well, when dealing with the supernatural elements that the Watchers are exposed to, one learns to be careful," Giles replied. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"Okay, that makes sense. What's the third reason?"

"Ah… Ah…" Giles began.

"Dad, you okay?" the younger Giles asked as he put the book down and came to his father's side

"AH-CHOO!" Giles sneezed loudly.

And the book just burst into flames. Faith leapt out of her seat with a yelp as she was closest to it. Everyone else just gaped at it until Faith grabbed a fire extinguisher and hosed the flaming book down.

"What the hell was that all about?" she demanded.

Giles, finished now with wiping his eyes, and his glasses now back on his face, explained.

"Oh, yes, now I remember. Occasionally, these books will have flash packs, minor explosives, set into the binding, or magic glyphs that are imbued with the ability to self-destruct to keep the book's lore secure."

"By incinerating it?" Alec asked incredulously. "That's a strange way to keep lore 'secure'."

"On the contrary, son, with this method not only is the lore kept away from the eyes of those who would use it for ill, but it serves a powerful message, a warning, to those who would attempt to pry where they are not wanted."

" 'Touch our books and we'll blow you up'," Buffy commented wryly. "Yeah, that's a pretty strong message, Giles. You guys over there better be careful or I sense fiery-explosion badness in your future."

"Yes, well, that only happened once," Giles replied a little testily.

Everyone caught the hint.

"I have to go talk to D'Hoffryn," Anya declared as she got to her feet, "Maybe I _**he **_ will have scones." With that, she strode out of the store.

Buffy rolled her eyes."I think I'll go patrol," Buffy said aloud.

"Yeah me, too," Faith added, turning to Buffy. "How many graveyards are there in Sunnydale anyhow?"

"I've lost count."

"So, two or more?"

Buffy scowled at Faith's attempt at humor. The dark-haired slayer went from grinning, to looking very uncomfortable, very quickly.

"I'll just… check out the sewers," Faith amended.

"Do that," Buffy replied in a cold tone.

"Yeah…" Faith headed out the door without a word as Buffy watched her go.

Alec had watched them both, as had Giles, and they now exchanged a frustrated, concerned glance with each other.

"I believe I'll remain here and finish going through the diaries," Giles gestured to the fire-damaged table. "I believe I'll also attempt to get the scorch marks off my table…" Giles added dryly before looking pointedly at his son, "…again."

"Dad, if you want me to stick around, I figure I owe you for the scorched mess I caused earlier?" Alec assured his father with a grin.

"That's quite all right, Alec. Why don't you go patrol with Faith, I'm sure you can catch up with her," Giles suggested.

Buffy looked irked. "What? Why?" she demanded.

Giles sighed with strained patience, Alec didn't look much better.

"Because," Giles explained, "you have the home advantage: you know where to fight, where to run, and what to fight and run from - she does not."

"Oh. Fine," Buffy replied, gathering her coat and heading away from the pair without looking back.

"Oh, this isn't going to blow up in our faces at all," Alec commented darkly.

"One would think that by now, you'd be used to that, son," Giles joked with a small smile.

Alec laughed uproariously. "Fair enough, Dad, see you in a bit." With that, he left.

As soon as the door closed, the smile on Giles's face vanished, replaced by the cold look he had worn during his evening with Lily.

Giles tossed the red foci stone he had palmed during his argument with Alec on the table. Personally, he couldn't fault the young man his temper or impatience. He himself had been far worse when he was Alec's age, but the argument made for a nice distraction while the Watcher gathered what he would need to cast the evocation spell that would destroy the book.

Reaching up, Giles took down another crystal, this one a pale blue. Arranging the diaries of both Slayer and Watcher in a tidy stack, he placed the crystal on top and his palm over that.

"Alastair de Counde," he said out loud, " Abigail or 'Abby' Starkweather, Quentin Travers, Knights Templar: 1307 to 1308, Ethan Rayne, Philip Henry, Dierdre Page, Thomas Sutcliff, and Randall." One by one, Giles listed off names, dates, people, and places.

"The demon Eyghon, The Lazarus Project, The Cruciamentum," Giles stopped, sighing, he hung his head for a moment and took off his glasses, tossing them carelessly on the table before taking a deep breath and looking back up again.

"Giles: Anthony, Rupert, Alec." He finished.

There was a small hissing sound and printed words slithered out of the books, like black snakes, and crawled up into the crystal. Giles closed his eyes as the sound of all the different passages were whispered aloud as they were sucked into the foci: this was the part of the ritual he hated - having to listen to every last word that was being purged.

The last sentence crawled over Giles's hand and into the crystal. The books suddenly became thinner, empty pages being removed, passages being condensed to accommodate the sudden loss of content. Soon, the very last trace that there had been anything removed from them, vanished.

With a sigh, the Watcher slipped the blue crystal into a hidden pocket in his tweed coat: tweed was always good at hiding things away without exhibiting a tell-tale bulge. Giles smiled as he remembered Wesley attempting to do the same with an amulet and failing miserably.

Shaking himself out of his reverie, Giles reached out and knocked over the stack. The books all fell into a heap on the table, once again looking like a disorganized mess as they had been left by the others.

Giles went into the other room and came back with a tumbler of scotch and a glass.

He frowned suddenly at the still smoldering remains of that one Watcher Journal. Alec had been too quick with the fire extinguisher and there were still pages left undamaged.

The Watcher poured a glass of scotch and splashed it onto the blackened remains of the book.

Palming the red crystal again, he aimed it at the book.

"Ignis," he invoked, not needing to cover the word up with a sneeze this time, and thankful he didn't need to coat his finger in dust again to bring about the sneeze in the first place.

The book burst into flames anew. Giles sat down in a chair and poured another drink for himself, setting the bottle back down on the table, within easy reach for the inevitable refills.

Raising the drink in a sardonic toast to the flaming book, he sat quietly, sipped his scotch, and watched it burn with cold eyes.


	15. Chapter 13 Last Stand

Buffy walked through the graveyard. At this point it was as familiar and oddly comforting as a treasured playground from the days of childhood, or the half remembered images of a home, perhaps a few houses before the current one, even before LA.

"There's a comforting thought," she muttered to herself. "Yay - graveyards o' nostalgia."

"Pardon me, miss," a familiar voice called out from the gloom, "but you got a light?"

Buffy laughed as the face of her lover was illuminated by the flick of a lighter, a new one, she noticed.

"Hello, babe, come to keep a girl company?" she asked coyly.

"Yeah, don't know what kind of dangerous people might be out and about," Spike replied, sauntering over to her with a grin.

"Mmm, I think I do. And guess what?"

"What's that, baby?"

"They taste good…" Buffy whispered hungrily before she grabbed a fistful of Spike's t-shirt and damn near tore it from his body as she pushed her mouth hard against his in a kiss that was both hot as blood and cold as the grave.

"Bloody Hell, they do at that, don't they?" Spike commented, when the long kiss finally ended, being very glad he didn't have to worry about oxygen deprivation.

Buffy giggled. "Glad you approve," she quipped.

"Too right I do, baby," Spike replied hungrily as he pushed himself against her in a distinctly male way. "What do you say to seconds?"

"I'd say, yes, but not right now. I actually have work to do tonight," Buffy said with a sigh.

Spike blew a wisp of blonde hair away from her face in an attempt to semi-groom his lover, but mostly just to draw attention to the errant strip of golden hair. Buffy rolled her eyes up at it, stuck her lower lip out, and huffed, sending the lock of hair up into the air only for it to flutter back down again. She sighed and looked up at Spike, who was looking at her with infinite affection.

"Whatever you say then, baby," Spike whispered to her, uncharacteristically gentle, almost tender. He stroked her face gently with cool fingers and she nuzzled his palm.

"Okay. Good," she replied, placing a kiss on one of his fingers. The pair then walked deeper into the silent graveyard, the stone angels of mausoleums and sepulchers their only company; the statues watched the pair with envious eyes of blank stone, coveting the warmth of the living girl and envying the luck of her dead lover.

"So, what was that you were saying about 'nostalgia'?" Spike asked.

"Well…" Buffy began.

"… And over here is where I beat a vampire to death with a trash can lid, and over here was where I shot one in the head with a crossbow, that was a real mess, and- " Buffy continued to babble as Spike tried desperately to recall just how delicious that mouth of hers tasted when it was spewing tale after gruesome tale recalling her systematic annihilation of most of his undead brethren.

Suddenly, he stopped and frowned at a gravestone, pulling his attention from Buffy to focus upon it. The sudden shift in him did not go unnoticed.

"Hey, what's up?" his chattering slayer/lover asked him.

"This was Dru's stone," Spike whispered quietly.

"Huh? Oh," Buffy said sounding distinctly unthrilled as comprehension set in. "Drusilla. The ex. Got it."

Spike didn't say anything as, sweeping his leather duster out of the way, he knelt down to clear bits of grass and dirt away from the stone. With meticulous care, he cleaned the cold granite with even colder hands until the inscription could be read.

Buffy squinted. " 'Emily Audland: 1859 to 1880'," she read aloud, then her brow furrowed, "and something in German about angels: 'Und Auch-'" she began.

" 'Und auch der engel singen' - 'And the Angels Sing'…" Spike finished in time with her words quietly. He looked up at Buffy standing over him. "You never told me you spoke German."

"You never told me there was someone whose grave you visited, let alone it belonging to psycho-girl. What you saw in her-"

"This is her baby."

Buffy's mouth snapped shut with an audible click.

"Her… wha?" Buffy tried to speak.

"When she hustled herself off to the convent way back when, "Spike began, "she was 'in the family way', I think the saying goes. She gave birth at the convent and the ol' biddies there shipped the kid off back to her folks." Spike sighed. "And when Angelus abducted Dru's family to put the bite on them not ten days later, he left the little poppet here…" he gestured at the gravestone, "…safe in her crib at her soon-to-be-dead parents' estate." Spike scoffed. "He even kissed the babe on her little head before he left - a big, bloody kiss from having just torn the throat out of her nanny."

"Charming," Buffy said a little uneasily, she was never comfortable discussing these aspects of Angel's past, ex-status or no.

"Yeah, well, Angel's always been a charmer. Bastard," Spike growled.

"What is it between you two, Spike?" Buffy asked, bluntly. "It's not just about me, or Dru, or male ego or whatever the vampire equivalent is, so what is it? Is it just stress 'cause you're like, his great grandchild, vampire style?"

Spike shook his head. "That's not a box that will be opening tonight, love, and for the record, he's my grandsire," he informed her testily.

"Yeah, yeah, I remember; your 'yoda', as I recall," Buffy huffed. "So, why won't you tell me what the deal is?"

Spike sighed unnecessarily and slumped, leaning forward in his crouch to rest his head on the gravestone. He slowly closed his eyes and began to whisper.

"It's a lot of horror, love. A lot of things that he did, and that we did, for which there's no forgiving or redeeming: the kind of thing you need an evil soul to be able to pull off, not just an absent one." Spike suddenly rocked back on his heels and, taking out a fresh cigarette, screwed it between his lips and lit it. He took a long, steadying drag before continueing.

"And it's… just bloody twisted…" Spike struggled for the words, but couldn't get them, instead taking another hard drag off the cigarette, blowing it out through clenched teeth before sucking it back in through his mouth and snorting it out his nose. To Buffy, it made him look like an angry dragon: white peroxide-blonde horns, streaks of black and red for hide, and smoke curling from his nostrils, hinting at the fire that lay within and could only be seen in his eyes.

"The little thing got rescued by some late-night callers over at Dru's and they raised it as their own. And then they lost their money, got really poor and really cold, and the wee girl here, now a pretty li'l thing got really sick, and then really dead," Spike bit out. "And I remember watching them, there in the streets… crawling, and begging, like animals…" Spike had two fistfuls of dirt in his hand and was currently squeezing them so tight, his pale knuckles nearly split with the force of his clenching fist. "…And I remember that no one stopped - no one seemed to care, to even bloody notice these people just… dying. Just sort of… fading away, quietly." Spike laughed bitterly and threw the dirt at the stone.

"And Angelus and Dru are both there, I don't know where the blond bimbo wandered off to, and Dru doesn't even recognize her, she's so far gone, and I'm fresh out of my grave, and Angelus just throws his head back and laughs, and says, 'Ah, there's no place like London!', and what a shame it is that she 'couldn't have followed her mother's footsteps' - as a spaced out, blood-sucking, sadistic BITCH!" Spike snarled as his face changed into its demonic visage as he leapt to his feet and slammed a booted foot against the stone, over and over again, furious.

"You bloody bastard! You sick, twisted, son-of-a-bitch! I'll kill you!" Spike screamed slamming his foot over and over into the stone until, finally, his strength gave out and he dropped to his knees, breathing hard and reflexively, his face changing back as the rage drained out of him.

"What happened?" Buffy asked quietly, having watched the entire affair with a sort of detached numbness.

Spike sighed and got to his feet, stopping to clean the scuffmarks off the gravestone, and sticking yet another cigarette between his lips.

"She died," he answered simply, lighting the cigarette and taking a long drag from it. "They all just… faded away and died - like they'd never been there at all."

"If she died in London: what's the grave doing in America then?"

"I made it, during my first trip out to the States. I used to take a pretty good turn at stone carving before I found my 'true calling' -" Spike's sarcasm was enough to choke someone, " – as a poet. Time came to come to Sunnydale, I yanked it out of the ground where it was and brought it with."

"Why?" Buffy asked simply.

"Because there's a difference between being 'without a soul' and being just bloody 'empty'," Spike told her cryptically, gesturing at the stone again. "I got her this thinking it would, I dunno, jog her memory, bring her down to earth, help get some bit of human back in her."

"Okaaaaayyyyy…" Buffy dragged the word out in great uncertainty, "but, you were vampires."

"Yeah, and unlike your bloody ex, we were in love," Spike snapped back. Buffy looked hurt and the vampire sighed. "Well, at least I was. And you can't love someone, or be loved by someone, who hasn't got a shred of humanity in them. I've said it before Buffy - love isn't brains, it's blood." He took another pull from the cigarette, blowing smoke into the air. "Blood screaming at you to work its will. But blood belongs to the living, in the end," Spike admitted sadly. "We just borrow it for a bit. Just like we borrow life from it," he turned to face the gravestone again, "just like we borrow love from it," he finished in a whisper, his expression haunted.

A slow rumble of thunder began then - the weather in Sunnydale had been odd lately and a thunderstorm in the middle of December was not out of the realm of possibility.

Buffy shivered slightly, at the roll of thunder and at Spike's words - she'd forgotten that, every now and then, he could be profoundly insightful and say or do things that struck a chord so deep in her that she nearly shuddered. It was part of why she loved him, she imagined, they were two of a kind.

"Is that when 'William' died and 'Spike' was born?" she asked him.

Spike shrugged and actually laughed a little. "No, but it was definitely a bloody nail in the bloody coffin of poor ol' Willy."

"Did Drusilla, you know, ever…?"

Spike shook his head. "No, the gravestone never meant anything to her. She saw it once, and mumbled something about 'dancing butterflies' before killing a couple of teenagers snogging against a tree over there." He gestured with his cigarette. "Never bothered showing it to her again and she never asked. But I always stopped by here a lot whenever I could," Spike smiled slightly and looked askance at Buffy, "between bouts of getting my arse kicked or having a pipe organ dropped on my head by a certain blond Slayer," Spike added.

Buffy looked embarrassed: sometimes it was difficult to remember how vicious their hatred of each other had actually been back in the day.

Spike continued to speak. "Anyhow, like I said, I always came out here, to take care of the grave, take care of the girl that should've been alive, and happy, with a mum that remembered who she bloody was or who gave a damn. And to remind myself."

"Remind you of what?"

Spike looked at her straight on then, unflinching.

"To remind myself what its like to be 'empty', to feel nothing at all, just like poor Dru, and just like your 'Angel'," he bit out.

" 'And the Angels Sang'," Buffy whispered to herself, suddenly understanding the awful bitter sentiment the passage was meant to convey.

"Oh, he will, someday, love, that I promise you - for this," Spike gestured at the gravestone, "and for other things."

Buffy looked up, shocked at the sheer malevolence, the raw, cold hatred in Spike's voice.

"What… kinds of 'things'?" she asked him tremulously.

"Worse things. Much. Worse. Things," he annunciated each word into a separate sentence for emphasis.

"What… kind of worse things?"

Spike opened his mouth to answer, when a bizarre call rang out through the graveyard. The thunder rumbled again, louder, as the voice rose up in some kind of rising, desperate howl that sounded almost like…

"…Singing?" Buffy said in disbelief, her dread vanishing as she slipped into 'combat mode' the instant the first sound reached her ears.

Spike composed himself and shook his head. "Not singing, love, dirging, it's a vampire trick - singing without breathing, let's you do weird things with your voice." Spike shrugged self-consciously. "I've been known to enjoy a tune once or twice," he admitted by way of explanation.

Buffy smiled slightly, trying to banish the darkness that had settled upon her heart from the last few minutes. "Well, then, let's see who's feeling musical," she replied as she plunged into the darkness.

Spike began to follow, then stopped and looked back at the gravestone: a small, humble thing, badly scuffed with bootmarks, the fresh ones covering much, much older ones. They mingled with dents that could only have been made by a furious vampire, regularly, over the last hundred years and change.

"I'm sorry, poppet," he said quietly before heading after his lover. Whether he was apologizing to the stone, or to the spirit of the young girl it represented that had "faded away" before his newly-dead eyes, was not to be pondered by anything that remained in the silence following his departure… save for the shadows and the dust.

What awaited them, however, was something neither the living nor the dead were entirely prepared for.

There was Dracula, now dressed in a pair of leather pants, motorcycle boots and nothing else, lounging bare-chested upon a crypt, arms outstretched to either side of him, and howling exultantly in that bizarre musical tone.

"Okay, now, are you certain you've never read Anne Rice, 'cause I'm having a serious Townsend moment here," Buffy quipped.

Dracula arched his back to crane his neck, bringing the Slayer into view, albeit upside-down.

"Ah, Buffy, welcome," he purred. "To answer your question: no, I am not a 'Lestat rip-off' as you have insinuated, nor am I 'pimply' or 'overweight'," he continued with an air of semi-wounded pride as he rolled over onto his flat stomach and got to his feet, shaking the dust off his bare shoulders.

_My god, does he have that right: the man could make doing laundry look sexy_ Buffy thought as her stomach did flip-flops. Buffy forced herself to pay attention to what the vampire was saying as opposed to doing or wearing _or not wearing as the case may be._

"Granted, Radu, may have been known as 'The Handsome Prince,' the Turkish Sultan certainly seemed to think so…" Dracula spat the words like bile as his face twisted into an expression of pure bitterness. Catching Buffy's look, he quickly regained his composure. "…but, nor was I some kind of 'leper king' or 'afflicted nobility'," he assured her, using terms she'd never heard, but a tone she knew all too well - a guy trying to impress a lady.

_He's trying to impress me!_ Buffy thought with a more than a hint of girlish glee.

Spike scoffed. "Yeah, so far, the only 'affliction' is your amazing ability to turn any conversation into an occasion for grand poof-ery," Spike mocked. "The great Count Dracula-"

" 'Prince'," Dracula corrected him. "It is now 'Prince Dracula', I've reclaimed my birthright as Prince of Romania."

Spike just shook his head. "Yeah, whatever you say, Drac…" Dracula frowned at this in irritation, which was probably Spike's intent. "…But what are you doing rolling half-starkers on a bloody grave-slab?"

"I am reveling," Dracula replied. "Refueling the spirit for the dark times to come."

" 'The dark times to come'?" Buffy said with a gulp.

The Romanian Vampire favored her with an indulgent smile. "Oh, I know that I have no need to lecture you about how dark times can become, and how quickly they can become so: after all, you are a slayer in Sunnydale."

"You are so not wrong," Buffy affirmed.

Dracula chuckled, low, and deep in this throat. "I know, and it is good to not be wrong… most of the time at least," he admitted, for a moment seeming to lose touch with the present and reality.

"Regardless, though, I come bearing a tribute," he told her. Buffy frowned and caught Spike's eye, who simply shrugged in a "who-the-hell-knows?" manner of fashion, indicating that he had no idea what the vampire prince would produce next.

Bringing his hands up and away from a patch of grass near the tomb he was resting upon, he came up holding a large black lump of rotting vegetation that reeked badly of decomp.

Buffy frowned, trying not to gag at the familiar smell. "Oh, good, I was hoping I'd be able to choke on this particular smell, again, real soon," she grumbled. "What the hell is it anyhow?"

And then the object went _thump-thump_ and Buffy jerked her head up to meet the Count's eyes with a gasp, even as a loud _ka-boom_ of thunder rumbled in the sky above.

"No way!" she said in amazement.

Dracula grinned, showing a bit of fang in the process. "The heart of your enemy - the slain Golobulan - and my gift to you and your kin. The Summers women have undergone a terrible ordeal, I hope this at least will purchase you all some peace of mind," he consoled.

"You have no idea," was her only reply.

"To use the language of the times, do you want to bet?" Dracula retorted.

"Hang on a second then," Spike interjected as he examined the heart, gesturing at it with his lit cigarette. "This thing's supposed to be a mass of rot, how's it got a heart?"

Dracula's grin turned predatory as he spoke. "My dear William…-"

"Don't bloody call me that," Spike interrupted with a growl.

Dracula kept right on talking over him.

"…have you not learned by now that it is not what is outside, but what lies within that truly has value?"

With that, Dracula squeezed the heart gently and a tiny spurt of black slime shot out of it and struck the lit tip of Spike's cigarette.

There was a whoosh as the cigarette burst into flames. Spike's hand nearly did as well as the vampire dropped the burning object with a yelp and stomped on it with his thick boots. Dracula simply laughed, watching the English vampire's antics as he furiously tried to stamp out the fire and wring his hand in pain at the same time.

"WANKER!" Spike roared and lunged for Dracula.

"Be still," was all the other vampire said. The effect was instantaneous. Spike jerked to such an abrupt halt that he toppled over and, had Buffy not been there to catch him, would have landed with his face at Dracula's feet.

"Okay, boys, let's play nice," Buffy admonished them, gently helping Spike to his feet. "You all right babe?" she asked him.

"Yeah, yeah, bloody perfect," Spike growled.

"Not bad for 'showy gypsy tricks,' what say you, William?" Dracula asked, wryly.

"Don't bloody call me-"

Dracula arched an eyebrow.

"Sod off, mate," Spike muttered his breath with a sigh.

Satisfied for the moment that Spike had learned his place, Dracula turned his attention to Buffy.

"Your family? They are well?" he asked.

"They are alive," Buffy replied, astonished that there was actually concern in Dracula's voice. " 'Well' might be stretching it, but they are all in one piece. Or two separate but equal pieces, but, well-"

"Thank you, Buffy, I comprehend your meaning entirely," Dracula assured her, holding up his hand to signal that she needed to stop speaking.

"What the bloody hell is wrong with you?" Spike growled at her between clenched teeth.

"Shut up and go back to nursing your hand," Buffy growled back at him. Neither one of them had bothered taking the other aside and Dracula watched the entire exchange with bemusement.

"Ah, yes. Spring, 'when a young man's fancy turns to love'," the elder vampire quoted.

"It's winter, and you can go straight to Hell," Spike growled.

Suddenly, there was a burst of dust and stone fragments, and the entire slab that made up the cover of the tomb upon which Dracula had been resting on barely moments earlier, shot off like a rocket and landed with a thud off in the distance.

"I believe we have someone who will accommodate that wish, William," Dracula replied warily. This time, Spike didn't even notice the unwelcome name as he frowned, trying to peer though all the dust. Buffy, meanwhile, was keeping one eye on the dust cloud and the other peeled for any friends it might have.

"What the hell is it?" Spike muttered.

A vine encrusted skeletal hand reached up and gripped the granite rim of the tomb.

"I don't need to know, do you, honey?" Buffy asked Spike, her eyes wide at the sight that was hauling itself up out of its stony confines.

" Yeah, no, I'm fine with not knowing," Spike agreed in a hurried tone of voice. " In fact, I'm all for leaving now, getting a giant onion and a pitcher of beer and maybe just not ever knowing what is about to come out of there."

"Come now, William, you know what they say about the curious cat and how satisfaction will always bring it back," Dracula chided them both gently.

"Screw the cat, what's going to bring us back?" Spike retorted.

"I dunno, we'll think of something," Buffy replied distractedly as she settled into a fighting stance, "but meanwhile, we have company."

A rotting corpse, once human, climbed up and out of the gray tomb. Where it's body was not rotted through by the decay of time, now-familiar black vines wrapped their way inside and around its body, forming a creature that was one part plant, one part zombie, and entirely horrific.

"Oh, fan-freaking-tastic!" Buffy groaned, "Golobulan 2.0!"

"These are not Golobulai," Dracula was quick to assure her. "They are weaker things, puppets, nothing more."

"Good, because the only way we made it out of the last one is with my brother's help and without him I'd say we'd be screwed."

"Alec Giles?" Dracula shook his head, "No, you may trust me in this, Buffy, there is far more danger for you in the keeping of his company than with its absence, this I promise you."

Buffy frowned, turning to face Dracula. "Okay, what are you- "

"He's brought his mates!" Spike cried out.

Buffy whirled around, cursing herself for taking her attention from the fight, and gaped as she saw multiple creatures, just like the one before her, closing in on them at a speed that belayed their shambling gait.

"Do you have any suggestions?" Dracula asked the Slayer quietly.

"Me? You're the one that held off 90,000 Turks with only 30,000 men," Buffy whispered back fiercely.

Dracula whirled on her in shock, his blue eyes wide. "How do you know this?" he demanded.

"Umm, you're the most popular vampire since Brad Pitt?" Buffy countered. "It's not like I can't look you up online."

"Oh," Dracula said, his pride again sounding slightly wounded. "So, because of movies and magic computers then?"

"Will you just shut up and start killing things already?!?" Spike screamed.

"As you wish."

And with a blinding flash, a bolt of lightning came down from the sky and struck a patch of earth in front of several of the vine zombies. Electricity raced up into their bodies and they jerked and writhed for a split second, then exploded as the methane that fueled their botanical portions ignited.

"Holy-!" Spike cried out, as he and Buffy turned a shocked look at Dracula.

Dracula smiled magnanimously. "I was afraid my storm would not make it here in time. As I said though, it is good to be wrong sometimes," he informed them with a smile. More zombies approached, and, as rain began to come down in sudden, heavy sheets, Dracula's eyes shone iridescent blue in the rain.

"And this is how you deal with Turks," Dracula snarled, his smile turning feral as he bit his thumb and flung blood upon the ground, shouting something in Romanian.

Buffy frowned.

"What the hell does 'the rage of the forests mean'?" Buffy shouted, spitting out a mouthful of rainwater. The rain was coming down in a powerful torrential downpour: a true 'dark and stormy night' had been summoned by the vampire prince's power.

"Watch and see!" Dracula cried out in exultation.

"Make it fast or it's 'bugger all'!" Spike yelled. The zombie horde had almost reached them, Buffy had lost count of their numbers.

And then the ground trembled where Dracula's blood had been spilled and giant wooden stakes erupted from the earth, impaling zombie after zombie.

Buffy and Spike stared, dumbstruck, at the carnage as Dracula laughed in delight.

"Behold! I give you the legendary 'Vlad Tepes: the Impaler Prince'!" he yelled mirthfully as the zombies writhed and wailed as they were one by one, impaled by Dracula's weapons.

And then the mirth turned to rage in the blink of an eye.

"No!" he roared and swore in Romanian. "You wretched land, how dare you!"

Buffy had to squint to see through the rain in an attempt to discern what had so enraged the vampire, but she saw it, at last - the wood with which the giant stakes were made from was rotted, pitted and black and slimy; Buffy could see insects burrowing through it, transforming them into mounds of wooden mush. Before her eyes, the zombies pulled themselves free of the rotting stakes, making the wood crumble into more mush, and then the zombies advanced.

"You look pissed," Buffy commented.

"Those stakes were weapons from the war. With them I impaled my enemies and set them along our borders to warn those who would enslave us. The land granted me the power to summon them and now this wretched place has corrupted them," Dracula growled.

"A vampire using stakes, fighting alongside a slayer; that's got to be a new one."

"Not as new as you may think. Now hearken, they are upon us."

"About damn time!" Spike cried out. "Bring it on!"

And with that he charged into the melee.

"Spike!" Buffy called out after him.

Spike didn't hear a word, he had entered a berserker state of mind, typical for when he was in combat, and was loving every second of it. The blond vampire threw punches and felled creatures, kneecaps and ribs shattered under his boots, skulls too, if they were knocked to the ground. Necks were broken, and heads were torn free of their bodies entirely. He was having a wonderful time.

He also was in trouble. He'd charged without support into the thick of things and the zombies had closed ranks behind him, cutting him off from the others and surrounding him.

"Outnumbered, outgunned, and staring death in the face," Spike commented off handedly before a grin spread itself across his face. He reached down and grasped his crotch with one hand, giving the monster the 'V' sign with his other hand: the English equivalent of a very common (and very obscene) American hand gesture.

"All right, my beauties! Balls of British steel here for the taking!" he cried out, still holding his crotch. "Come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough!"

The zombies were not impressed with his bravado and they came to him readily enough.

"These odds suck," Spike growled. "There definitely needs to be more of them. Oh, well." With that, he went to town on them.

But there were just too many of them… those he knocked down got back up, and even those whose skulls he crushed were giving him trouble - vines would explode from their bodies and entwine themselves around his feet, tripping him up or try to burrow under his skin.

But then he found the groundskeeper's shovel.

With a cry, Spike snatched it up and promptly decapitated three zombies in a row, far enough away that their vines couldn't entangle him.

"A grave shovel!" Spike shouted in joy. "Haven't seen one of these since I got turned!" He turned to the zombies. "All right, you bastards, shovel party for all! Here's your… INVITE!" Spike drove the sharp edge so deep into a zombie's skull that it split in two; the thing gurgled a little and tried to pull it out, its hand trembling as what was left of its nervous system had several inches of rusted metal embedded in it.

Suddenly, Spike grinned wolfishly, twisted the shovel's handle hard, and the head exploded.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Spike howled with glee and began the slaughter, singing the whole time.

" 'Regrets, I've had a few'- "

Zombie heads were separated from shoulders on the shovel's now-gory edge as Spine swung it.

" -'But then again, too few to mention'- "

Ribs shattered, and one zombie actually had the shovel pushed through his body and out the other end. Spike used him to club the others.

" -'I did, what I had to DO,'- "

Spike added a little emphasis on the last word as he twisted the shovel again, destroying the monster impaled on it.

" -'But dig- '... heh, get it? Dig?" he asked a zombie whose arm he'd just cut off with the weapon. The creature just gurgled, causing Spike to sigh, exasperated, and then continue to sing.

" -'Dig, what I had to do, I saw it through, with no devotion'- "

Spike thrust the butt end of this weapon through a shambling corpse's head, and then proceeded to drive a fist through its body and hurl it away from him like a missile into a group of other creatures.

" -'Of that, take care and just, be careful, along the highway'- "

Spike dug out his flask and lighter as he sang. Taking a long swig of booze, somehow still managing to sing with a full mouth, he spat it all over the ridiculously bloodied blade of the shovel with a grin.

" -'And more, much more than this, I did MY WAY!'- "

And with another swig of a scotch that was so high in proof that it would kill a mortal, he took his lighter and spat a gout of flame onto the zombies, catching the edge of his shovel. Now armed with a _flaming_ shovel, he stabbed zombie after zombie, each one exploding as their methane guts ignited, adding more flames and fuel to the fires, causing more zombies to explode, and so and so forth, until Spike's portion of the graveyard resembled a scorched war zone. The rain was the only thing that kept him from incinerating the entire place, something that he looked very disappointed about.

Finally, there were no more zombies to kill. Spike tossed the flaming weapon aside with a sigh and then grinned as he looked around at the carnage he had brought about.

"Thank you, thank you very much," he called out to his audience of zombies, all mostly decapitated, dismembered, on fire, or all of the above. "You've been a wonderful crowd. Now for my next number…" He reached down and, with a grunt, tore a huge headstone out of the earth and, after hefting it, started swinging it around, testing it like a baseball bat. "…'Anarchy in the UK'," he concluded in an ominous tone, another homicidal grin forming before charging to help the others.

Dracula, meanwhile, was not doing as well as Spike. He'd been clawed by several of the creatures and was nursing an ugly wound just above his eye. Still, he fought on with his bare hands in the storm.

"Enough! You sicken me, monsters, if the rain will not wash away the stain of your existence; perhaps steel will." With that he took a clawed finger and carved a symbol into his own chest, crying out words in Romanian.

Buffy frowned as she heard them. " 'Purification of blood and iron' ?" she said to herself uncomprehendingly as she ducked another blow from a zombie.

Dracula suddenly plunged his hand into his own torso with a snarl of pain. Buffy flinched as the vampire rooted around in his own chest for a moment. With a roar of fury and triumph, Dracula pulled a large sword out of his body and swung it around to slaughter two monsters at once.

"You foolish creatures with your ancient taint, you cannot protect yourselves against my power," Dracula told the zombies. "I condemn you now to Hell." With that, Dracula began to carve a path through the monsters.

One of the lurching creatures managed to penetrate the Count's defenses; it snarled, inches from the vampire's face, its mouth open wide and vines writhed out from its parted lips.

Dracula smiled a smug smile and pointed a finger at the creature's eyes.

"You do not see me," Dracula intoned, channeling the power of his magic.

It was not enough. The creature's mouth opened wider and the vines within shot out, wrapped around the Count's finger and tore it clean off his hand to pull it back into the zombie's mouth; like a frog catching a fly.

Dracula roared in pain and quickly fell back away from the pressing onslaught of the zombies.

"My charms do not affect these monstrosities!" Dracula cried out.

"Why don't you sing some more, they might find that 'charm'-ing," Spike quipped bitterly as the group continued to be forced back against the press of zombies.

"No brain to trick! They're walking vegetables!" Buffy called out from amidst a furious melee with a horde of zombies.

Suddenly she went down with a cry.

"Spike!" she called out, just before vanishing from sight.

"Love!" Spike yelled, sounding panicked, and, giving a bestial roar, began swinging the gravestone he carried, like a man possessed. His vampire features manifested as he roared and killed, again and again, lost in a blind fury. In the back of his mind, the blond vampire was distantly aware of Dracula screaming from somewhere behind him, but the frenzy, fueled by equal parts fury and fear, had him in its grips strongly, and he did not think of Dracula, or anything else save his lover, and the… objects impeding his progress to her.

Smashing aside another creature with the large granite slab, he saw a flash of blond among all the dead-black and rot-green colors of the zombies and he dove for it. Buffy was laying prone on the ground, a combination of vines and hands were working to suck her down into the earth.

As Spike tore his eyes from the creature, he realized that he couldn't see the Slayer's left arm. With a growl, he bludgeoned away another monster and saw why - there was a zombie _chewing_ on her arm, her wrist, tearing away strips of flesh and muscle, like a man stripping the meat from a roast, with gory bits of skin dangling out of its mouth, like bloody little ribbons of sinew.

"BASTARD!!!!" Spike bellowed and brought the gravestone around, hitting the creature in the side of the head so hard that the skull flattened for a moment, before it burst like a melon and then shot off its neck like a baseball as the raging man followed through with a devastating strike.

"You. Don't. Get. HER!" Spike roared, smashing at the hands and vines grasping at Buffy; using the gravestone, his fists, his feet, and even his teeth to shred, mutilate, and gnaw his way through dead skin and rotting vine alike.

"Spike?" Buffy called out weakly.

Tearing free the last of the grasping vines, Spike jerked his head up to look at her.

"Hello, baby. How you feeling, then?" he asked, attempting to sound casual, but he saw the wound on her wrists, spurting blood in time with Buffy's heartbeat – arterial spray, he knew at once – and his own heart grew cold at the sight, far colder than death had ever made it.

Buffy smiled, drowsily. "You look grumpy," she stated in a sleepy whisper, reaching out to trace the outline of his prominent facial ridges, brought about by the change.

At her touch, Spike's face immediately reverted to a smooth human face. It was the face of a young man who was deeply in love, and who was also about to die with her, but refused to let her be scared, or let himself to go down easily.

"Just got a bit worked up, baby," Spike said in a halting voice. He reached up to cradle his lover's head in his hands, squeezing her body tightly, and looked around. More zombies were advancing: rotting vines and hungry, yellow teeth, and they had managed to surround them completely. Dracula was nowhere to be seen.

"Wanker," Spike muttered under his breath at the other vampire's cowardice, and for leaving Buffy and he to die. It was her death, though, that truly troubled Spike. He'd been dead a long time and, even so, this is how he wanted to die – bloody and screaming and surrounded by the broken bodies of his enemies. However, he never thought he'd have all that, but be forced to watch the one person in life he truly loved die.

"Mmm, I'm sleepy Spike," Buffy mumbled into his chest, a drowsy voice that only comes from a great deal of lost blood. "Is it time for bed, baby?"

Spike felt a powerful, painful shudder, the MOST painful thing he had ever experienced, rip through his body as the reality of the situation came crashing down upon them.

They were both going to die. Now.

"Yeah, baby," he whispered hoarsely, "yeah, it's time to sleep, love," he said, choking on the last word. Spike could feel Buffy's body going cold, could feel her heartbeat slowing down; the wound in her wrist had ceased spurting and was now a slow, seeping thing, a fountain from which the last of his lover's life would leak from.

"Mmmkay, good," Buffy whispered quietly, nuzzling deeper into her lover's chest. "I'm cold."

Spike's self-control slipped a little then, and he gave a small, painful sob. The zombies were very, very close now. Spike could smell their stench of mildew and putrefied tissue.

"I don't bloody think so!" Spike snarled, game face back in place, and getting up to fight, to at least go down fighting before these monsters took them down and stripped the meat from their bones.

"No…" Buffy protested as she felt Spike pull away. "Stay with me, stay with me until I go to sleep…." she pleaded in a tone Spike could imagine her using as a little girl to get anything she wanted from mommy or daddy.

Spike broke. He sank back down as his visage regained its humanity, and he sobbed - painful, hurting sobs that offered no relief, only regret - right there in the cold dirt of a fresh grave, surrounded by the dead, walking and buried, beside his dying paramour.

"Awww, what's a matter… honey?" Buffy's voice was trailing off.

Spike grabbed her hand tightly and squeezed so tight it would have hurt had her hands not been numb from blood loss. She was so cold.

"Nothing, baby, nothing at all," he rasped out, taking one last look around. The zombies had apparently waited a moment to gather their fellows, so that they would all share in the bountiful feast that they were about to enjoy. They weren't, however, stupid enough to break the circle they'd created, and Spike knew Buffy was too far gone for escape at this point.

"Nothing's wrong at all, baby," Spike repeated as he continued to cradle Buffy's body, pressing her blond head into his chest. That was one thing he'd always loved about her - her hair. It reminded him of the sun, something he found himself missing. Spike looked up at the sky for a moment. It was black with no moon, no stars, and no care for what was about to happen, a silent and apathetic witness, and Spike found himself hating the night and how casually it was going to watch them all die.

The zombies began to advance again, hissing and snarling.

"Yeah, yeah, piss off," Spike muttered. A thought came to him and the hand that was cradling Buffy's head became tense, muscles began to prepare to do something he would never, ever have done in a million years, but that was preferable to what was to come, preferable to seeing his 'sun' change from golden to blood red.

"I'm sorry, baby," he whispered into Buffy's ear, kissing it.

Buffy smiled. "Mmm, is it time to sleep? I'm sleepy."

"I know, baby," he assured her, his hand hard against the back of her head and ready.

"Close your eyes, Buffy."

"Hey… you called me 'Buffy'," the slayer whispered, her voice trailing off as the wound in her wrist stopped leaking. Spike kissed her head, fiercely and hard as a kiss goodbye needed to be, as he whispered, "Close your eyes."

Spike closed his eyes and tensed.

"Close your eyes, baby."

The zombies fell upon them...


	16. Chapter 14 Danger

_Spike closed his eyes and tensed._

"_Close your eyes, baby."_

_The zombies fell upon them… _

…and then they were obliterated in a shower of gore and vegetation.

Spike gaped as a glowing specter tore through the zombies that had been about to kill them. Arms flew off, heads flew free, and when the ghost would fly _through _them, they simply disintegrated into mush.

The zombies began to fall back, but, by then, it was far too late.

More ghosts came then: two, five, ten, twenty – it was an entire tribe of spectral warriors. The rain had begun to trickle off with Dracula's sudden absence, but Spike could clearly hear the falling water boil away as it fell through the ghost's incorporeal bodies.

_If these guys are warriors, I'm the fagging Queen_ Spike thought in confusion as he got a really good look at theose incorporeal bodies.

Ghostly men, women, and children of all ages were moving amongst the zombies. They were dressed in strange, rural clothing: kerchiefs and shawls, flowing dresses and silk scarves, and he watched the phantoms slaughter the zombies with an odd sense of detachment; much like shock.

Suddenly, his brain kicked back into reality with a gruesome jolt - shock could no longer protect him from the events of the last few seconds.

"BUFFY!" Spike called out again. Looking down, he saw that he still had the Slayer's head in a death grip, ready to snap her neck rather than let the zombies have her. Hurriedly, almost guiltily, he shifted his grip from "ready to kill" to cradling her head, desperately trying to save her life. His other hand clamped down on the oozing wound. He couldn't believe her little heart was still pumping, Slayer's strength, no doubt. But even a Slayer's heart would stop when drained of enough blood. He knew that first hand.

_Oh…bloody, sodding, pissing Hell, why didn't I think to do this before: compress the damn wound, make a tourniquet, SOMETHING_ Spike thought to himself furiously as he worked to keep what little blood was left in his lover's body in it.

Another thought answered him inside his head, _Because you were too hungry for the kill, mate, you always were a stupid git when your blood ran hot. _

"What would it take to get you to SHUT THE HELL UP!?" the vampire roared to himself.

From above his head, something roared back.

"What the hell?!" Spike cried as he jerked his head up to see just what exactly had made that sound. When he finally saw it, he quickly wished he hadn't.

A monstrous, winged… CREATURE… had swooped down from the sky and was in the process of decimating the masses of zombies the ghosts hadn't quite gotten around to destroying, yet, and, it appeared to be having a good time.

It was enormous: eight feet tall, not counting the wings, thickly muscled, teeth the size of knives, and talons the size of scythe blades. It swooped and strafed the remaining zombies, slicing them in two, biting their heads off completely, or picking them up with its large talons and dashing them against gravestones, trees, or each other, hard enough to shatter their bodies completely.

"Ohhhh… bugger," was all Spike could say at the sight.

A few minutes later it was all over.

The zombies were gone - wiped out or escaped into the night, Spike didn't know or really care at this point - the phantoms had now all gathered around Spike, trapping him up against the large gravestone he and Buffy had taken refuge against. They stared blankly at him, no readable expression or comprehension in those dead eyes. They looked haunted, as if Spike were the ghost and not vice versa.

The winged beast roared again, loud as a lion and ten times as mean. It came to perch on the gravestone, its talons digging in like it was soft as clay. Spike got a nice close up of the monster as it craned its head and peered down at him, growling softly.

It had huge, wolf-like ears and smoldering, yellow eyes that glowed faintly. A mane of coarse black hair, just like a lion's, framed a face that was dominated by a pronounced, bat-like nose and large protruding jaws, which sloped down into a chin that, had it not been so overwhelmingly terrifying, would have given it a surprisingly snooty profile in his mind.

The wings loomed large and dark over Buffy and Spike, curling inwards and penning them all in, like a cocoon. The ghosts formed ranks, blocking all chance of escape.

"If you're going to kill us," Spike said to the monster, resigned but unafraid, "get it the sodding hell over with, you great poofter."

The creature's bloody lips pulled back into a grin, exposing, huge, gory teeth, and then it growled loud enough to shake Spike down to his bones.

"Showy. Gypsy. Tricks?"

Those huge jaws were made for biting the heads off zombies, not speech. Still, Spike understood the garbled words clearly enough.

"You son of a-!" Spike didn't get a chance to finish his curse as the thing threw back its head and howled, long and loud. The howl became the sound of deep, rich laughter, the huge wings swooped up and folded, bending impossibly backwards upon themselves with a loud _crack_. More noises followed. Wet breaking sounds came in a rush that set the blond vampire's teeth on edge.

As the mangled wings simply, dissolved into mist, a man was revealed grinning fiercely.

"Permit me to introduce myself," Dracula said with a toothy grin, the large batmonster teeth rapidly shrinking to normal. "I am Dracula." Then he got a look at Buffy and hissed in rage.

"You FOOL! What have you done?" snarled the Count as he gnashed his fangs and leapt down from the gravestone. The ghosts cowered away from him, but Dracula passed through them without heed and backhanded Spike across the face so fast and hard that his brain hadn't fully understood he'd been hit until he was sailing through the air.

Spike tumbled to the dirt but quickly sprang up, growling like a dog at Dracula, his face shifting back into its demonic state as the other vampire scooped up Buffy.

"You wanker, don't you touch her! You're completely out of your head, she's not Elis-"

"**You will not speak that name!" **

Dracula's voice boomed with power and Spike felt his blood freeze under the command. He couldn't even blink, couldn't speak or scream as the Romanian vampire leaned over Buffy's still form. Spike didn't even know if she was alive, though he thought she was, which is why, even now, he struggled against the other vampire's magical control over his blood.

Dracula brought corpse-cool lips close to Buffy's face. He caressed her face, which was cold as death crept into her body, and gently cupped her chin to turn her head from him. He lay down upon her, resting his face against hers, cheek to cheek, with his mouth inches from her soft lips, and only a few more inches from the softer curve of her pale throat.

Spike grit his teeth in impotent fury, the noise of them grinding nearly causing him to miss what happened next. As if sharing an intimate secret with a long-time lover, Dracula began to whisper to the Slayer.

"You think you know. What you are. What is to come?" Dracula's focus intensified on the woman, a hair's breadth between them. "You haven't even begun." He then placed a tender kiss upon the Slayer's ear.

If Spike were human, he would have been having a seizure at this point in his loathing of what was happening before him.

"My blood flows through your veins, Buffy, and it will heed my command," Dracula quietly assured her as he placed a pale hand lightly on her chest.

Buffy began to moan softly. Spike couldn't tell if it was in pleasure or pain, and it made him grind his teeth even harder. There was a gentle thumping sound and if Spike had not been paralyzed, he would have gaped openly at the sight of Buffy's heart beating, visibly, up through her body. He watched in awe as slow, steady movement bulged the shirt up and out, making it gently rise and fall. The heartbeat became stronger and he felt a surge of joy at the sight.

Buffy moaned slightly and then opened her eyes: her expression glazed and far away, much like the gaze of the ghosts that were still watching them.

"Vlad?" she asked and startled both vampires – she now had a subtle, eastern European accent and her voice had taken a strange lilting quality Spike had never heard before.

The other vampire, however, had heard it before, and he went stark rigid at it. Spike had never, in all his un-life, seen the ancient vampire so utterly shaken down to his very core. Dracula gripped the gravestone to steady himself. It began to crack and crumble underneath his grip, raining down dust and pieces of stone upon them both. He didn't even seem to notice as he whispered in a shaky tone, "It cannot be."

Buffy's only response was to begin humming dreamily. The humming reminded Spike of Dru, which made his skin crawl. He pushed past the memories and thought the tune sounded familiar and then he placed it – Beethoven's "Ode to Joy". The humming stopped abruptly as Buffy began to cough violently; blood flew from her lips to splatter against the Count's bare chest.

Dracula went berserk.

"No! You shall live!" he screamed. His face contorted into an expression that wasn't even close to human or sane. He tore her shirt open, exposing her. For a minute, he stopped and frowned at something, then, with a scream, he reached down and tore something from around Buffy's throat with one hand and drove the other into her chest.

Buffy screamed suddenly as the pounding of her heart increased ten times in speed and power. Her ribs cracked from the strain of it, and she whimpered in pain as Dracula's magic forced the combined power of their mixed blood to sear through her veins, blasting through the valves in her heart.

Her heart swelled up hard through her chest and Spike could hear the sound of her ribs now breaking from the power of it all. Buffy began to sweat profusely, soaking her shirt in perspiration, blood, and tears as she thrashed and cried.

"No, no, no, no, no," she whispered, thrashing like a little girl in a bad dream.

"**YOU WILL LIVE, I COMMAND IT!" **Dracula continued to shout, pinning her down underneath his weight. Blood began to well up from the five holes his fingers were now making as they dug into her flesh. His other hand grabbed her wrist and bent it all the way back, pinning her down. The wrist snapped, Buffy screamed, and still the vampire would not relent.

The ghosts began to wail in phantom agony as their master became more and more agitated, that same agitation allowed Spike to rally against the power that held him silent and paralyzed. He could feel it begin to weaken now that the other vampire lost apparently all semblance of self-control. He began to work his tongue around his mouth and, worked the muscles in his neck and jaw, trying to pry his mouth open enough to speak.

"C'mon, Spike, do not bollocks this up!" he growled through gritted teeth, and was taken aback when he realized he'd been able to speak, albeit only through a closed mouth like a ventriloquist, but still able to speak.

Dracula had dug his fingers so deep into her flesh that it looked like he was going to dig his way to her heart and physically massage it into life. Buffy was howling and screaming in pure torment; her back was contorted so severely that it looked ready to break and it was forcing her to press herself harder against the Count, lewdly like a tortured love. Her eyes had rolled back into her skull, and she was coughing up blood at a prodigious rate.

"Going to kill another one, are you Drac? Four dead girls weren't enough?" Spike yelled with all his might through his paralyzed mouth.

The effect was instantaneous and just as dramatic as the previous shift in Dracula had been: he fell backwards, away from the girl, tumbling unceremoniously on his backside and staring wide-eyed in horror at Buffy's still, bloody body.

"What have I done?" Dracula whispered in shock.

"She's not her, you stupid horse's arse!" Spike shouted. His lips could now move, but the rest of him was still stuck in a position between a crouch and standing.

Dracula shook himself from his own paralysis and stalked over to Spike, smashing a fist into the Englishman's face with a snarl. The blow sent the blond vampire flying through the air to land on his back on a gravestone, making him cry out in pain - the impact had nearly shattered his spine, and his newly-restored jaw now felt like broken glass.

"You do not say her name! You never say her name!" Dracula roared at Spike, grabbing him by the throat, swinging him around, and slamming his skull hard enough into a gravestone to topple it with a _thud_.

Spike lay there, paralyzed and helpless. Dracula loomed over him like a furious storm cloud. The Romanian Prince shifted his glance then from glaring at the other male to focus on something on the ground – the headstone he'd knocked over. He laughed and reached down to effortlessly hoist it up for Spike to see.

"I cannot comprehend why you bore this all the way from London: a completely fallacy to serve as a headstone for an empty grave," Dracula sneered as he held up Emily's grave marker. "But, as I remember, you always did prefer a pleasant fiction to a harsh reality."

"I wasn't the only one, you ponce. Remember Jules?" was all that Spike said.

With a crash, Dracula brought the stone down on Spike who gasped in pain.

"That is on your head, William! I gave her unto you as a ward and you failed to save her from Heinrich's pet Slayer. Your failure, not mine! Her blood is on your hands!

"That's not the hands I remember her blood being on, ya bastard."

"My blood is pure, you walking piece of filth! You are the 'bastard', not I."

"Yeah, right, sure, like I said – I'm not the only one who appreciates a good lie."

The elder vampire screamed in rage at the taunt. He brought the stone down on Spike over and over again to accentuate each word.

"You. Will. Never. Be. Pure!"

The stone cracked apart then into two jagged pieces. Spike was broken, a bloody ruin of a man at this point; not even his vampiric fortitude or healing could withstand the might of Dracula's fury.

With a growl, Dracula tore a ring from his finger and shoved it down Spike's throat. It would have choked him had he needed to breathe.

"Take that back to the Slayer's allies. Tell them of your failure to protect her," Dracula then grinned savagely.

"Perhaps I will tear her soul from Heaven to tell her the truth of you myself, and along the way explain exactly what happened to Emily and all the others 'Spike,' " he taunted. "Heinrich's foolish necromancy was but a pale imitation of _my_ power."

"Don't… you… bloody do that to her," was all Spike could manage.

Dracula raised the broken gravestone over Spike's neck, the end jagged and sharp. "I will give that poor girl's soul your fondest farewells, before I destroy every dear notion she held of you," Dracula assured Spike. "From filth you came, back to filth you go." Dracula raised the weapon up over his head, and Spike refused to close his eyes, meeting the Romanian's gaze steadily now, at the end.

The gravestone was suddenly jerked from Dracula's hand. As the vampire whirled around, it was smashed hard against his face.

"I like my soul where it is," Buffy quipped, swinging it around and then up to catch Dracula under the jaw and sending _him _flying through the air, for once.

The Prince tumbled to the ground, his jaw broken. Twisting his body, the tumble became an acrobatic somersault and he rose smoothly to his feet with his back to the Slayer.

Buffy wasted no time in charging the vampire, bringing the gravestone up for a blow that would drive the vampire into the ground like a tent post.

"Heads up!" Buffy called out and swung. Then she toppled over as the headstone swung through, not Dracula's body, but the mist it had instantly become. Buffy fell hard, the gravestone was sent flying as the vampire reformed in the blink of an eye, now facing the Slayer, peering down at her, calm and composed.

"Your heart is strong, Buffy Summers, for that I am glad," Dracula informed her. "You are full of surprises, I will admit. I had no idea you spoke the language of my homeland with such skill…" Buffy looked up at him as he she got on her hands and knees, lifting herself from the ground. She appeared as if she didn't have a clue in hell as to what he was talking about as the tall vampire continued, "...but, I digress, I have lingered here too long and I would hunt now." He turned to go.

"Hey, I want some answers!"

"Find your own answers, my lady Summers," he said dismissively, walking away from her.

"Why do you care if I live or die?" she asked him

Dracula stopped then. There was a long pause and then he spoke, not turning to face her.

"You remind me of someone," Dracula turned to look over his shoulder at the Slayer. "Do you see these wraiths?"

Buffy shrugged, after everything she's been through, ghosts weren't going to scare her at this point.

"Yeah? What about them?"

"Why don't you ask Liam if they remind him of some people he knew, when you tell him about all this," Dracula grabbed a hold of a ghost that was within arms reach, and spun her around to face Buffy. The ghost was dressed differently than all the others: a pretty dress, and boots that would have looked appropriate on the feet of anyone at school-

"Oh, my god," Buffy gasped.

Dracula just smiled and, very deliberately, rotated the unresisting woman's head a full hundred and eighty degrees exorcist-style to look at Buffy. The face was covered in a veil but the eyes were unmistakable.

"That's Je-"

"As I said, Buffy, find your own answers. Those around you can provide a great deal of them, should they be probably motivated." Dracula released the ghost and it continued to stare, unrecognizing, at Buffy as it walked away, its head still backwards, and it faded into the gloom along with the rest.

With that, Dracula leapt into the air, transforming into the winged monster he'd been earlier. The sound of flapping wings faded away as the creature vanished into the night.

The last wraith drifted past Buffy, and she gasped at the sight of them: she was very young, very pretty, and very, very pissed off, staring clearly AT Buffy.

"I can smell him on you," was all she said in a raspy not-real voice that faded in and out like bad stereo equipment. The ghost girl flipped her hair away from her throat…

…displaying two puncture marks.

With another accusing glance, the ghostly young girl faded into the night to join the others.

Buffy stared slack jawed at it all as Spike limped over to her then, gently setting his jaw in place.

"Ow!" Spike said with a wince as he turned to Buffy. "Are you all right, baby?" he asked her thickly, spitting out a few teeth.

"When did he get so powerful? He wasn't like this before," was all she said.

"He was holding back last time, I'll wager. He's a bloody wizard on top of being a very old, very strong vampire."

"We don't tell the others about this, Spike, ANY of this. Most of them would freak and Alec would tear apart Sunnydale piece by piece until he got his hands on him."

"Yeah, that's why I like him, 'kindred spirits' and all," Spike commented with a smile.

Buffy whirled on him. "I mean it, Spike! Not a word to him, or to Giles!" Buffy frowned. "There's something going on with him, Giles, I mean. I don't know what, but it scares me."

"Probably the scent of mothballs and tweed."

Buffy's eyebrows shot up at this and Spike held up his hands.

"Okay! Okay! Not a word!"

"Catch a ride with Angel and head back to the shop. I'm heading there next."

"All right, baby, whatever you say." Clearly unhappy with being around Angel, that was all Spike said.

"Umm, when did my shirt become all bloody and torn apart?" she asked

"You had a bit of a rough night, love. Drac used some magic to patch you up. Used a bit of 'Vampire CPR' it seems."

"I don't remember… Oh no!" Buffy cried out, beginning to desperately feel around her shirt and neck.

"What is it, baby?"

"My ring! Angel's ring! It's gone!" she cried out heedlessly.

"You wear his bloody ring around your sodding neck?!" Spike yelled.

"Spike! Not the time!"

"Yeah, right, never time for me, but time enough for you to have your bloody EX-boyfriend's ring around your neck!" Spike jerked a cigarette out of his jacket, lit up, and started to leave. "Bugger this! I'll see you later."

"Wait, Spike please!"

"Here, why don't you wear Dracula's ring while you're at it?! You seem to have a soft spot for 'tall, pale and angsty'!"

There was a metallic sound as Spike hurled the ring over his shoulder at Buffy and stalked off.

Buffy stood there for a moment, stunned. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with everyone? What had happened tonight?

She bent over and picked up the ring, uncaring, and then froze. The clouds the vampire prince had summoned for his storm were gone now and it was a bright moonlit night, bright enough for Buffy to see the ring clearly. Bright enough for her to recognize it with horror…

A moon and three stars - The Order of Aurelius. The order the Master had belonged to.

The man, no, the monster, that had ended her life.

"It's getting late," Alec commented with a frown at his watch and the darkening landscape. Buffy had just made it in a few minutes ago: wet, cold, and looking thoroughly miserable. She had gruffly explained that patrol was a bust and, while Alec was certain she was lying, her clothes were a mess, including small bloodstains, and she was cradling her wrist. He had decided not to press his sister on the matter. Even now she was sitting quietly in a corner, not really talking to anyone and looking very far away. With a sigh, knowing that he wasn't being listened to, Alec continued.

"It's getting late, which means–"

–Suddenly, there was a loud screech of tires from outside, followed by a crash and the sound of rushing water. Alec leapt to his feet as everyone hurried to the door. He reached it first and, after jerking it open, took two steps out and stopped dead in his tracks.

There was Angel's car, half up on the curb with a dented fender, and a fire hydrant that had been knocked almost clean off its mountings, spraying water like a geyser high into the air in a torrential downpour upon the two furious vampires in the car. Spike was behind the wheel and was engaged in a heated argument with the elder vampire seated beside him.

"My fault?! Listen, you great poof, if YOU hadn't have jerked the wheel out of my hand to avoid hitting that dog, we wouldn't BE in this bloody mess!" Spike roared at him.

Angel snarled. "Well, if you hadn't been going seventy-five in a twenty-five mile an hour zone, you would have SEEN the dog BEFORE you were right on top of it," Angel shot back angrily.

Spike's eyebrows rose to form a 'v' at his brow in shock before launching into another tirade.

"Do you know what this is?" he gestured to the tape deck. " 'The Pogues: A Rainy Night in Soho' live at CBGB '77.' it is NOT a soddin' twenty-five mile an hour tune, you flaming nancy boy!" he retorted angrily.

Angel just shook his head in frustration.

"That's the last time I let you drive," he growled as he opened the car door, sloshed out of his car, and slammed the door shut behind him. Spike, just as sodden and wet, likewise clamored over the car door. Glaring daggers at each other, the soaking wet vampires sloshed up to the stunned assemblage at the front door of the shop.

Alec did his best, but he felt a serious attack of hysterical laughter threatening to wash over him. Taking a deep breath, he regarded the dripping pair.

"Well it's certainly a 'Rainy Night' somewhere. So, how was your day?" he asked politely. They snarled and shoved past him to enter the store. Spike stopped short to send Buffy a significant look, Buffy returned one even sterner and for a second, Alec was curious. And then he remembered just how much Spike loved hanging out with Angel in a "non killing Angel" capacity and he grinned as he regarded the geyser erupting out onto the street. Turning back to his father, he cocked an eyebrow.

"I'll take care of this, Dad, if you could…" he gestured to Willow, who was still staring at the whole scene with wide eyes and probably hadn't heard a word he'd said. Giles instantly understood his sons desire for privacy in the use of his powers, and, taking Willow by the shoulders, guided her back into the store. Alec waited until she was gone before turning to the two Slayers. Faith looked ready to burst with laughter and even Buffy's mood had lightened slightly at the vampire's antics.

"Girls? Give a guy a hand?" he asked them.

They nodded, laughing quietly and doing their best to avoid getting soaked, carefully picked up the damaged fire hydrant and placed it back on its moorings. The geyser abruptly ceased as the Slayers held the fixture firmly in place against the water pressure coming from below. Alec knelt by the fire hydrant and, extending a finger, conjured a long trail of shadow to slither from the digit and wrap itself firmly around the base of the fire hydrant. There was a slight groan of stressed metal as the tendril tightened around it.

Alec stepped back.

"Okay, on three, let it go and jump back, just in case the bond doesn't hold," he warned them. "Ready?" They nodded. "Three!" he yelled.

They jumped back in unison, letting go of the fire hydrant. The bond held and Alec released a sigh of relief before turning a sardonic grin to the two women.

"Well, if this hero business doesn't pan out, I can always go into the civil services," he wisecracked self-deprecatingly.

The women chuckled and Faith shook her head.

"D, forget honest work. With your tricks, go into something more lucrative, like, robbing Fort Knox or something."

Buffy sent her a disapproving look. "Faith! Straight and narrow, remember?" she reprimanded the woman sternly.

Faith colored and looked down. "Sorry, B, didn't mean anything by it," she mumbled, downcast, keeping her eyes to the ground.

Buffy continued to glare at her, before something in her face changed. The hardness drained from her eyes and she slowly reached out a hand and placed it reassuringly on the younger Slayer's shoulder.

"I know you didn't, Faith," she sighed. "Go inside and tell Giles we're good to go here."

Faith looked up at her, and, smiling gratefully, placed her hand over Buffy's.

"I'm on it," the younger Slayer reassured her. Squeezing the other one's hand she headed back into the store. Buffy smiled slightly and turned back to Alec, who was regarding her with deep admiration.

"What?" she asked a little embarrassed.

Alec came closer to her. "I'm very proud of you, Buffy. That was done as well as anyone could ask."

Buffy felt a lump in her throat at the intensity of those words. She nodded.

"Yeah, well, she STILL isn't right about Skipper and Gilligan," she quipped, doing her best not to show just how much his words had touched her.

Alec smiled knowingly and clasped her hand in his. "Yeah, well, I always pictured Gilligan with Mary-Anne," he replied smirking.

Buffy's eyes widened in shock. "Mary-ANNE? The professor's squeeze?" she exclaimed shocked. "You're deranged," she pronounced gravely.

Alec laughed and wrapped an arm around the Slayer's slim shoulders, kissing her head affectionately.

"Probably," he conceded. "It does seem to run in this family," he teased.

She gasped, outraged, and socked him in the stomach. Alec exhaled hard and rubbed the sore place as she divested herself of his arm and walked haughtily back into the store, nose up in the air.

"Spike has got his hands full, that's for sure," he commented, laughing. He rubbed his stomach once more, and followed his sister, entering the store to see Angel and Spike toweling their hair dry, both dressed in tweed suits and looking miserable. Alec's hand flew to his mouth as he tried unsuccessfully to keep from laughing.

"Trying to make a fashion statement, guys?" he quipped.

Buffy, who had a huge grin on her face, answered. "Their clothes were soaked, and this was all Giles had lying around," she offered as an explanation.

Giles turned. "What's wrong with these suits? This is authentic tweed, it's the very epitome of understated grace." He smiled suddenly, looking a little forlorn, and whispered, "As I remember, it's also handy for stopping crossbow bolts," before wiping something from his eye, mumbling about the dry air causing his allergies to act up.

"Yeah, it makes a statement all right, the statement being 'I couldn't get a date to save my life," Spike bit out with a snort, fingering the lapel of the tweed jacket with obvious disdain.

Buffy chuckled and draped herself across his lap. "Oh, come on, honey, it doesn't look that bad."

The vampire's blue eyes widened in disbelief.

"Well, okay, it does," she conceded, "but that's okay, you're not after dates." She snuggled against him. "You've got me, remember?" she asked adorably.

Despite his best efforts, Spike wasn't quite able to keep a grin off his face.

"How could I forget?" he bemoaned quietly.

Buffy smiled. "Oh, shut up," she admonished lightly, kissing him. Spike didn't bother arguing as he held her in his arms.

Angel turned away from the display, an expression of deeply buried pain flashing across his face. Alec noticed it and sent the vampire a sympathetic look before he turned and looked up at Willow.

"Lover? We're going to need your biology know-how at the campus lab." He looked back at the jar on the table, the parasites floating within it, still comatose. "I have no idea how to dissect the little buggers and I wouldn't know what to look for if I did."

Willow got to her feet, a teasing smile on her lips. "Ah, men, give them something to pummel and they're all speed ahead, but give them something requiring a little knowledge and they're lost in the woods." She grinned and picked up her bag.

Alec favored her with a condescending grin. "Whatever you say, princess. Now that you've trashed my sex, will you come help?"

Willow pretended to consider it before answering. "I suppose, but you're wrong though."

Alec frowned, puzzled. "Regarding?" he asked her.

She grinned naughtily. "Me trashing your sex. I was trashing your gender." She continued to grin at him flirtatiously. "I've got no complaints about your sex," she finished wickedly.

"See. That's what I'm talking about!" Buffy suddenly cried out. "What IS it about the end of the world that gets everyone all hot and bothered?" she demanded.

"It's a tension releaser, love. Everyone knows that," Spike replied smugly.

She turned to him, still lounging on his lap.

"Yeah, I've heard that." Chuckling, she turned back to Alec. "You need anything in the way of muscle?" she asked.

Alec shook his head. "Probably, but it's all right, you and Spike stay here. Relax for a spell. I'll bring Faith with me." He looked at the woman in question, who nodded in agreement. He then turned to Anya, who was busy playing solitaire on Willow's now-vacated computer, and apparently not doing very well.

"Anya?"

There was no response.

He called again, "Anya?"

Anya began muttering aloud, "Red and black, why does it have to be only red and black. I've got a six here and a five there, why-"

"ANYA!" the whole room yelled in unison.

Her head shot up. _"_WHAT?!" she demanded.

Alec sighed. "Are you prepared to contact D'Hoffryn tonight?" he asked her.

She frowned. "Oh, is that all?" She shrugged. "Sure, as soon as I get the necessary spell components."

Giles pointed at a shelf. "Everything you need should be there, Anya, do you have the glyph?" he asked her.

Anya snorted derisively and reached into her pocket, holding it up for all to see in a "I'm clearly so much smarter than all of you, why do you insist on not acknowledging that?" kind of way.

Giles nodded. "Well, then, I suppose that's all we need." Reaching out he collected the specimen jar as Alec shrugged his duster on. They turned to go, when the door to the backroom opened and a groggy, but much healthier looking Xander emerged. He rubbed his eyes, and noticing that Anya had her attention firmly fixed on the computer in front of her, sighed in palpable relief.

Alec grinned at him. "Xander, feel like a little Bio 101?" he asked wryly.

Xander stopped to consider, he could either do that… or wait for Anya to get bored with the game and turn her attentions back to him.

"Come on, let's go. Time's a-wasting," he declared, bounding up the stairs and out of the store, halfway to Giles' car already. Alec chuckled and joined the rest of the group as they turned to go.

"Faith!" Buffy called out. Faith turned to her. Buffy got off Spike's lap and reached over to a wall, taking down a small axe. She tossed it to the other slayer, who caught it deftly. Faith frowned at her.

"What's this for, B?" she asked.

"In case you run into something with a worse attitude than yours," Buffy replied.

Faith grinned. "Worse attitude than mine? Not possible," she responded cockily as she touched the axe to her forehead in a mock salute. "Thanks, B."

Buffy waved it off.

"Forget it, just return it in one piece," Buffy replied before settling back against Spike. Faith nodded an affirmative and left, followed by Willow and Giles. Alec, sending another look of pride at the Slayer, closed the door behind them.

"Well, it's a parasite," Willow declared, taking her eyes away from the microscope. She had one of the tiny creatures under a high-powered microscope and was studying it intently. She shook her head in bewilderment, "but it's not like any I've ever seen before."

Giles frowned at her. "How so?" he inquired.

Willow sighed. "Well," she began, "for starters, it's an endoparasite. It's designed for living inside a host body and it comes equipped for the trip. Its developing cells are protected by a cyst wall like a tapeworm's is."

They were in the campus laboratory, the lights shut off so that Willow wouldn't have to deal with glare. Willow sat on a stool in front of a lab table, Alec and Giles beside her, and Xander and Faith sitting on desks behind them.

Giles nodded. "Protecting it from its host's immune system, interesting," he observed.

Willow nodded. "It gets better - it's got teeth. Normally, only ectoparasites, parasites that live outside the body, like leeches, come equipped with any sort of teeth or barbs," she frowned and continued. "Now, here's where it gets really weird-"

"We weren't already at 'really weird?' " Xander quipped sardonically.

Willow shot him a patiently amused look before continuing.

"It's a permanent parasite, which means that it's meant to live out its life span within a host, but it also contains characteristics of a facultative parasite, which means it can survive just fine without one."

Giles frowned. "How can that be?" he asked.

"It can't," Willow replied simply. "This thing shouldn't exist, period. But it does."

"Leave it to the Hellmouth to repeal the laws of nature," Alec added dryly.

"It's repealing more than that," Willow put in, "this thing is shedding its surface cells and replacing them with polarized silicon."

Xander frowned. "You mean like that stuff they put in..." he put his hands to his chest signifying breasts.

Willow rolled her eyes. "Not silicone gel, Xander, silicon, an organic polyurethane substance that's very durable," she frowned, "and also not supposed to exist in the natural world, at least not in a living organism."

"Isn't silicon supposed to be flame resistant?" Alec asked.

Willow nodded and patted him on the head.

"You get a cookie, lover," she smiled prettily at him; he smirked and gestured for her to continue. She nodded in agreement to his allegation. "Yep, silicon is supposed to be flame resistant, but I'm examining the cells that haven't been shed yet, and THEY contain high traces of methane, which is anything BUT flame-resistant," she leaned forward and looked back into the microscope, "my guess is, is that this change was triggered by its exposure to air."

Faith frowned. "So, hang on, these things have skin made up of stuff that burns, because they live in peoples bodies and don't need to worry about fire," she furrowed her brow, "but when you take them out of people, they shed their skin and replace it with stuff that doesn't burn?"

Willow nodded. "More or less."

Giles shook his head in amazement.

"That's a remarkable defense system. That sort of biological reconfiguration is unheard of, especially at the rate that this seems to be capable of," he turned to Willow. "Have you begun the internal probe?"

Willow rose from the scope. "Just about to start. Alec, can you hand me that scalpel there? That small one?" she pointed to a tray of instruments, without looking up from the microscope. Alec selected the correct one and placed it handle-first into her outstretched hand.

"Thanks," she replied. Gingerly, she moved the edge of the blade to the creature, began a small incision across the length of its body… and cried out suddenly as a tiny stream of black liquid shot out of the wound and splashed against the scalpel. The creature, suddenly very much awake, shrieked and thrashed against the constraints of the microscope tray as Willow jumped back, dropping the now smoking scalpel. Alec pushed her behind him, eyeing the microscope warily.

"Good lord, Willow, are you all right?" Giles asked.

Willow swallowed and nodded. "I'm all right, I didn't get any on my hand," she looked down at the scalpel on the floor, now corroded and useless, "but I think I may want thicker gloves to continue this."

Alec turned to face her. "What's going to keep that stuff from eating through the gloves?" he asked.

"Most lab gloves are made of an anti-corrosive latex. Unless this stuff is as powerful as molecular acid, and if that were the case, the entire microscope would be melted into slag." She gestured and shook her head. "No, I'll be okay," she smiled reassuringly up at him and patted his face. "But it was very brave of you to protect me from the big bad leech."

Alec snorted and kissed her hand. "Hey, I'm always ready to protect you from things that I outweigh by at least a good eighty kilos."

Willow chuckled and gingerly poked at the ruined scalpel with the toe of her sneaker before deeming it safe to pick up. The blade was pitted and charred.

Xander whistled. "Acid for blood, cool," he smiled at Willow. "Hey, Will, remember 'Aliens'?"

Willow shuddered a little. "Yeah, I was seven when you talked me into watching that. I had nightmares for a week," she replied.

Alec laughed and took the scalpel from her, tossing it into the garbage. Another tinny screech from the microscope brought them back to reality. He turned to address his father.

"Dad, could you…?"

Giles already had a syringe filled with alcohol at the ready.

"Have one for the road," the elder man whispered with a savage tone that caused Alec's ears to prick up, as he inserted the needle into the creature and pushed the plunger down. The creature stopped thrashing and lay still. Giles gingerly removed the syringe; the needle tip was now melted into slag. With a look of disgust, he placed the instrument into a medical waste disposal bin and turned back to the group.

"It's been rendered docile, though I don't see how you'll be able to continue the dissection, Willow, if its blood can eat through the metal scalpels."

Willow nodded as she pulled on another pair of latex gloves with an elastic snap.

"I wasn't planning on using metal scalpels," she replied, looking around the lab, before finding a tray with several instruments made of some sort of black plastic. Picking the tray of tools up, she brought it over to the table. "These are made of anti-corrosive plastic, sort of like the gloves. We used them once when we dissected a cow's stomach. These proved pretty resistive to the cows digestive acids."

Xander made a face. "You cut open a cow's stomach?" he blanched, before informing her, grimly, "Wills, you need a hobby, STAT."

She ignored him and placed a small black plastic Petri dish under the parasite, before taking scalpel in hand, and, this time very slowly, drawing the tip of the blade across the length of the parasite. Taking a pair of tweezers, she gently peeled back the flaps of skin to study its workings.

"It's an incomplete organism," she informed the group. "It can survive on its own, but its really just part of a larger organism."

"Like the golobulan that spat these things at me in the first place?" Alec asked.

Willow nodded. "I think so, but since I don't have a sample of the golobulan's genetic tissue, I can't be certain." She frowned inhaling. "Anyone else smell that?"

Alec understand instantly. "Methane," he said, focusing on the creature in the dish. "Is it coming from it?" he gestured to the microscope.

She nodded. "It's weird; it doesn't have anything in the way of organs, just a lot of rotted tissue. It's like it's in a state of continuous decomposition," she lifted her head from the eyepiece and made an adjustment to it, "let's see what an examination at the cellular level reveals," she leaned back into the eyepiece and whistled. "Whoa!"

Alec frowned. "What is it?" he asked.

"Well, at first glance it looks like your average animal cells. Mitochondria, nucleus, everything pretty much standard, but if you take a closer look," she squinted her eyes, "there's something that sort of resembles a collection of thylakoid membranes, which are supposed to contain chlorophyll, the key component in the process of photosynthesis."

Faith spoke up. "That thing plants do in order to eat?"

Willow nodded. "Yeah," she agreed hesitantly, "except, I'm getting a good look at this chlorophyll and it does not look like the type that can utilize sunlight. This stuff seems more conducive towards a kind of chemosynthesis. A variation of photosynthesis, no sunlight required."

"Makes sense - if this thing has anything in common with the Hellmouth, sunlight's probably a bad thing," Alec commented thoughtfully.

Willow stood up, taking her eyes away from the microscope. "The whole thing just doesn't add up."

Giles cleared his throat. "So, what we have here is a parasite, that can either live in a body, or on its own, can shed its skin to match its environment, and has characteristics of both plant AND animal cells?"

Willow nodded. "And that's also part of a larger organism, and that seems to be in a perpetual state of decay." Willow shook her head. "I've never heard of anything like it."

Alec snorted. "This isn't exactly National Geographic material," he commented wryly.

Xander perked up. "Hey, I've heard of something like it." Everyone turned to look at him and he colored a little.

"Well, in this movie, I saw last year, 'The Faculty', I think it was called, it had these parasites in it that could control human beings. But, really, all they were, were these things that were spat out of this really big monster," he thought hard, "I'm not sure, but I think one of the guys in the movie did this same thing we're doing, and HE said it was an incomplete organism, too," Xander finished.

Faith snorted. "So, what?" she retorted. "I keep getting told I look like that kid who can talk to dead people' on TV."

"Haly Joel Osment?"

"No, no, the other one, the chick on FOX. Her show got cancelled or something."

"Heh, yeah happens a lot on FOX. There was this great 'cowboys in space' show, catchiest theme song in the world-"

"If you please?" Giles interrupted. Xander looked sheepish and shrugged.

"Hey, I'm just saying where I saw it," he replied defensively.

Alec held up a hand, "How did the movie end Xander?"

Xander thought. "The kid killed the big monster and that caused all the little monsters that had taken over all the people to die," he grinned, and added, smiling, "and the school nerd got the hottie."

Faith scoffed wryly. "Over-relate much?"

Xander ignored her as Alec pursed his lips in thought. Giles regarded him.

"Son, what are you getting at?"

Alec shook his head. "I'm not sure, but if this is an incomplete organism, then we should find what spawned it, the golobulan or whatever, and get rid of it - that should kill off anyone who's had these things put in them."

Faith frowned, "Yeah, but D, we haven't run into anyone who's had the bite put on them, so what difference does it make?" she interjected.

Alec turned to his father. "Dad, you remember what Dracula said about what had happened to everything that had lived underground? What had happened to those that didn't get away in time?"

Giles nodded slowly. "He said that had been made part of a larger whole, unwillingly." He got it instantly and regarded his son with a mixture of paternal pride and astonishment. "You think this was what he was referring to? That they'd been somehow infected with these necro-parasites?"

Alec nodded slowly. "That'd be my guess, yeah," he turned to Willow, "but there's only one way to know for sure. Introduce one of the parasites to a living host."

Willow didn't like the look in his eye. "Alec? What are you thinking?" she asked a little worried. When Alec put his mind to something, "reckless" didn't even begin to capture how he could get. He caught her worried look and smiled reassuringly.

"Relax, baby, nothing overdramatic, but do we have any rats in here?"

Willow frowned and nodded. "Yes, but they're the property of the school."

Alec waved her protestations away. "I'll spring for some new ones, where are they?"

Willow turned to the lab door. "Down the hall about three doors to the left," she answered and gestured.

Alec turned to Faith. "Feel like a little B and E?" he asked her.

She grinned. "Always," she replied as she hopped from her perch on the desk and followed Alec out of the lab. They came back minutes later, Faith bearing a cage containing a large white rat.

"Here is our lucky contestant for 'You bet your life'," Faith piped in, setting the cage down next to the microscope.

Xander frowned. "Huh?" he asked, confused.

"This little guy is going to be taking a serious detour on the evolutionary ladder," Alec explained.

Willow whimpered. "You're going to infect him with the parasites? That's… that's…" she sputtered.

"Necessary," Alec gently soothed her, "we need to know what we're up against."

"Yeah, but he's so small and furry and he's white," she protested weakly.

Alec nodded. "Okay, I see your point. Would you rather not be here?"

Willow nodded emphatically.

Alec chuckled. "Okay, why don't you and Xander go raid the vending machine for Oreos and Doritos? Dad, Faith, and I will take care of things here," he suggested.

Willow nodded. "I'm not normally squeamish or anything, and if he was a frog I'd be all in favor of demonic infestation," she gave Alec an apologetic look, before gesturing to the rat in its cage, "but he's FURRY!" she exclaimed. "I like furry things!" she offered piteously.

Xander chuckled and threw an arm around her shoulders. "This is a throwback from Oz, the teenage werewolf boyfriend days," he quipped. Alec's face spasmed briefly, his own jealousy aside, Willow had never entirely gotten over Oz's sudden departure or Tara's equally abrupt disappearance.

Willow caught the look and elbowed Xander. "Just for that you can buy your own darn Oreos," she retorted before giving Alec a quick reassuring kiss. Alec smiled, letting her know all was well and she smiled back gratefully before she headed out, Xander following close behind.

"Ah, come on, Wills, I was joking! Wills!" he cried as he exited the room.

Alec shook his head, chuckling, before returning to the business at hand.

"All right, shall we?" he asked.

Giles cleared his throat. "I suppose so," he murmured. Unscrewing the specimen jar, he carefully removed one of the sedate parasites and placed it in the cage with the rat before screwing the cap back on tightly and setting the jar back on a table. The rat sniffed at it curiously as the three of them hunched near the cage, watching intently.

Faith turned. "So, how long is this gonna tak-"

With a screech, the parasite lashed out, catching the rat's throat with a vicious bite, sinking it's teeth deep into it. Blood spurted out as the rat wailed, and the three of them jumped back.

"Jesus!" Faith cried out. "Holy…" she shook her head.

Giles and Alec regained their composure, and leaned forward, although a great deal further away than they had been originally, as the parasite gorged on the rat's blood. With a gurgle, the rat collapsed and lay still.

"Cute little buggers aren't they?" Alec commented dryly. Giles mumbled something as they watched the parasite began to burrow under the dead rodent's skin, and they watched the skin bulge sickeningly along the trachea and under the rat's chin. Before it proceeded to slither back along its spine, fur and skin surging and rolling before settling at the base of its spine. For a moment, the rat was still.

Faith swallowed through dry lips. "Is that it?" she asked.

Suddenly the rat's face SHIFTED into a demonic, vampire-like face, its eyes shot open and bulged nearly out of their sockets, no longer albino red, but a deep putrescent yellow-black, utterly pupil-less. It screeched as its skin began to stretch and writhe.

"Not even close," Alec replied, watching the rat's metamorphosis with sick horror. The rat's fur melted and fell from its body, its face began to elongate to accommodate the rows of dripping needle teeth that had grown in through its gums, its paws thickened and widened as the skin, now mottled and festering with decay, stretched tightly over the bones which popped and groaned wetly. It snarled a sound far too deep to be coming from its body and gripped the bars of the cage, its paws gaining extra digits to form something that nearly resembled hands, each finger ending in a wickedly curved claw. The rat's body continued to swell and grow as it thrashed from side to side. It was now the size of a large beaver and quickly running out of room in the cage. The three people in the room began to back away from the cage in unison.

"Uh, D? How's about we pull the plug on the demonic Mickey Mouse over here?" Faith suggested sounding a little worried.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Alec replied. "Dad, get the gun."

Giles whirled on his son in shock. _HOW DID HE KNOW?!_ . "Gun? What gun?" he demanded.

Alec jerked his head to gape at his father. "You didn't bring a gun or a crossbow? How could you not bring a crossbow? You always bring a crossbow!" he yelled.

"I don't always bring a bloody crossbow!" Giles yelled back while secretly being relieved that his son had asked about 'a' gun, not 'THE' gun.

"Will you shut up about the stupid crossbow?!" Faith yelled at them.

"Look out!" Giles yelled, pushing the others out of the way as the creature reared back and smashed clean through the front of the cage, careening over their heads, snapping at them with drooling jaws as it landed in the shadows of the lab, behind some specimen bottles, and disappeared from sight.

"Where is it? Where'd it go?" Faith demanded.

Alec spun around and pointed at her. "Get the lights!" he yelled.

Faith nodded and slowly backed towards the wall with the light switches, her eyes sweeping back and forth, scanning the darkness for the creature. Her back collided with something solid and she yelled and spun around, fists raised. Giles threw his hands up to shield himself.

"It's me, it's me!" he cried. Faith lowered her hands, relieved, offering him an apologetic smile.

"Brings back memories, don't it?" she asked him wryly.

Giles snorted. "The box of Gavrok all over again," he replied dryly. He carefully moved past her, his eyes moving from floor to ceiling cautiously. Faith continued backing towards the wall, her fingers scraped against the light switches, condensation from a water pipe along the ceiling dripped on her hand, making her fingers slippery as she spun around and flipped the light switches on, florescent lights flooding the room. Faith smiled tightly and turned to address the group.

"Well, that problem solv-" she stopped as she examined her fingers. They weren't smeared with condensation, but instead with a foul-smelling clear ichor. Looking up sharply, she got a glimpse of a large silhouette in one of the florescent lights. Without any warning, the rat-beast exploded through the light, showering them all with sparks and glass. Faith had no time to get out of the way as the rat-beast, now no smaller than three feet in diameter, dove at her, snarling with dripping claws and fangs.

"Faith!" Alec cried. He dove into a shadow and came out next to her, shoving her out of the beasts trajectory and down to the floor as the beast slammed into Alec, sending him sprawling to his back, the hissing creature atop him, biting and clawing. Alec struggled to get a grip on the abomination's head to keep it from tearing his throat out as it drooled viscous slime across his face. He nearly gagged at the stench coming from its mouth, the smell of rot was overpowering. The beast thrashed this way and that, trying to dig its claws into his skin, but Alec kept wriggling about on the floor, dodging it as it continued to hiss and snap at him.

"Get this bloody thing off of me!" he screamed, still dodging its snapping jaws.

"Faith!" Giles cried out, tossing her the axe from off the desk. She caught it and flipped from her back to a standing position. The Slayer took three quick strides, bringing her into striking distance with the snarling beast, which was obsessed with devouring Alec. She raised the axe over her head.

"Hey, Mickey!" she called out. The creature jerked its head to snarl at her, drooling slime. Then its soulless eyes widened as Faith brought the axe down hard across its neck, severing its head cleanly from its body, spraying Alec with ichor. The head flew away from its body and splattered against the wall with a nauseating crunch. Rather than calming with the loss of its head, the beast frenzied as vines, dripping of slime, erupted from the severed neck. The vines writhed and cracked in the air. Faith, looking a little stunned, spun and delivered a punishing roundhouse kick to the creature, and with a tearing of fabric, its claws were ripped from their purchase on Alec's jeans and duster. It flew from him to slam against the wall, falling to the floor on its back next to the remains of its own severed head. Its paws scrabbling madly in the air, it quickly righted itself and charged madly at Alec.

Alec was crab walking away from it as fast as he could. He turned around and dove for a grip upon a lab bench, his fingers stroking the metal valve of a gas jet. An idea struck him, snatching the jar containing the last parasite from the table; he turned and hurled it at the rapidly closing creature. The jar shattered against it, stunning it slightly. He twisted the gas valve all the way to the right and, with a grunt of exertion, leapt over the bench to come to stand behind the gas valve, which was already spewing invisible propane gas into the air.

Faith, seeing what he was getting at, dug into her pockets and extracted a small lighter. She caught his eye.

"Catch!" she yelled at him, sending the silver lighter across the room. Alec lurched forward, picking his feet clean off the floor, balancing one hand on the desk with the other outstretched desperately to catch the object. It landed solidly in his palm, and with a snap of his wrist, the lid opened, the wick flaring to life. He brought his head around to target the writhing creature, which had shrugged off the blow and was coming full-speed at him, the vines sprouting from its neck writhing madly. With a vicious grin, he placed the lighter flame directly into the path of the spewing gas jet… and with a roar of combusting gas, a gout of flame erupted from the nozzle to engulf the creature. It screeched high and loud, standing up on its hind legs as its body continued to be assaulted by the makeshift flamethrower.

"Alec!" a familiar voice cried out. He craned his head to peer over the flaming creature in horror as he realized that Willow had dashed into the room, and directly into the path of the flaming creature's death throes. She screamed in terror and tried to back away from it, tripping over her feet and falling to the floor. The flaming monstrosity loomed over her, the stench of burning flesh and rot gagging her. She threw her arms up in a futile attempt to shield herself.

A black barbed spear tip erupted from the thing's chest, sending bits of flaming debris to spill across Willow, who yelped and scooted away on her backside, swatting at the fiery material. The spear tip unfolded, becoming a four-prong hook, and, with a jerk, ripped the dying monster back into the lab, revealing Alec, eyes swirling with darkness, one arm outstretched from which the harpoon emerged from, the other wrapped around the shadowy cord, dragging the creature away from his beloved.

"No. You. FUCKING. Don't!" Alec snarled through teeth clenched so hard they were beginning to crack. Tiny streams of darkness could be seen dribbling from between each tooth as he pulled his mouth back into a feral snarl and yanked with all his might. The creature flew backwards, its spine snapped from the brutality of his attack, and flew towards him. Alec didn't even have time to realize his mistake as the monster slammed into him hard, (word order) sending them both smashing into the wall in a heap.

A shelf full of dark black bottles marked "CORROSIVE" in dangerous yellow letters came crashing down upon them, and immediately there was a loud _HISS_ and an evil smelling vapor began to rise - chemicals began to eat through their flesh and both man and monster screamed as their skin and the muscle underneath it began to bubble and run like hot butter, and then… all was quiet.

Alec got to his feet, his face half concealed in shadows and coughing violently from the fumes. What was left of the beast was quickly melting into a pile of smoking goo and the young man was certain it was _finally _dead.

Willow ran up to him. "Are you all right?!" she cried out, reaching out to him.

Cradling his jaw with one hand, Alec waved her off and began stripping out of his jacket and shirt, checking his clothes fervently. The crazily swinging florescent light, mixed with all the fumes, the heat, and the smell, made it impossible to see anything clearly.

"Here, let me help you with that," Willow implored, reaching for his smoking jacket.

"Don't touch me!" Alec snarled. Willow drew back, afraid, before he offered an apologetic smile.

"Got some of that muck on my coat and clothes, love, no time for hugs," Alec replied hurriedly. Willow reached down and gingerly touched one of the broken bottles, wincing slightly at left over traces of acid.

" 'Sulfuric Acid, 15 concentrate...' " she trailed off in horror as she counted two, three, _four_ bottles, all identical and smoking, all smashed on the floor, and her lover in the middle of it. "Alec, are you sure you're okay?"

" 'Course, love, no worries. Go help the others, looks like I managed to dodge a few bullets there," Alec caught her look and sent her a half-smile from the dark. "No worries, baby, fit as a fiddle I am."

Reluctantly, Willow stepped away from Alec to see to the others.

The light swung back and revealed Alec in full - half his face was gone, just gone, hair, teeth, nose, musculature, all of it was simply gone. He looked like a plasticine mannequin - assembled by a madman before being dipped in acid and broken glass. Even the bones of his face looked wet and runny, and he could feel a draft at the top of his head where portions of his skull had been eaten away to expose raw brain matter.

With an impatient snarl, he brought his good hand up, the other having melted away into mush, and began tearing into his body mercilessly, yanking out wet clumps of dissolved tissue whilst angrily berating himself not only for his foolishness at having caused this damage but also for worrying Willow and slowing down the others in the process.

"Bloody idiot you are!" he muttered through his mutilated jaw as fistfuls of steaming acid-saturated meat fell away from his body in a frenzy of activity. Brittle bones broke and were pulled out of his head entirely as he tore into his face one-handed. "A fitting punishment for being a damn fool!" he said with a gasp, the excruciating pain of tearing flesh and bone from his own body setting every nerve in his tortured frame on fire.

A minute later he began to regenerate: slivers of bone, strands of muscle all wove down from his skull to knit his jaw back into place, and even as Alec stretched his jaw experimentally, flesh, gums, and teeth blossomed like flowers within his mouth. Connective tissues grew from just a few scraps of skin and cell residue into fully woven and healthy weaves of musculature. His skull regenerated to cover his brain again, whether or not his actual brain had regenerated, he had no idea. Hair, skin, even his five o' clock shadow - within moments all had returned.

Using his newly regenerated left hand, he gently helped pry out the destroyed eye on the left side of his face that was being pushed out by the new one growing in its place. With a sniff, he tossed aside the ruined eye, uncaring, like a used up tissue and looked around.

"So, that was fun," he commented. Reaching down he took one of the bottles that hadn't broken completely.

"To my health, it seems," he toasted and, with a grin that bordered on lunacy, drank it down. Tossing the bottle behind him with a crash, he waited. Nothing. No pain, not any thing at all. With a quiet laugh, he went to join the others.

"Are you all right?" he asked Willow fervently. She nodded and sniffled a little, looking into his face.

"I'm all right, just a little scorched," she assured him. She was coughing and blinking rapidly in surprise and for a guilty second, Alec was actually grateful that his lover had been too distracted by the attack to notice his powers at work.

Faith chuckled before looking around.

"Uh, guys? I hate to ruin this Taster's Choice moment. But shouldn't we get going?" she asked.

Alec nodded. "Yeah, let's get gone," he turned to his father, who stood there with a puzzled expression on his face.

"You all set, Dad?" he asked.

Giles frowned. " 'Taster's Choice moment?' " he asked querulously.

Alec stopped a moment. "Yeah, you see there were these commercials with this guy and, on second thought, forget it. I'll explain it to you later." Clapping his father's shoulder, he headed out the door with Faith and Willow. Willow reached out to grip his hand and give it a tight squeeze.

"I rather like Taster's Choice," Giles was heard to comment as they exited the lab.

Just then Xander came running up the hallway, his arms absolutely overflowing with snacks of all kinds: cupcakes, cookies, chips, candy bars, and cans and cans of soda.

"Hey, guys, I found a twenty in one of the couch cushions, so I went all out. Who wants what?" he asked. The others regarded him askance, and Xander finally tore his attention from his edible treasures long enough to focus on the suddenly ragged state of the group.

"Whoa! What's the sitch guys?" he asked, turning his head to face Willow almost reluctantly, "Wills, what's that smell?"

"Our contribution to the snack bin, Xander," Alec commented sourly. "Barbequed bloody rat."

"Not just any rat - Dusk's super-special Demon Mutant Rat," Faith added helpfully, making Alec glare at her.

"Oh...yay?" Xander joked weakly.

The other's just grumbled as they pushed past him out the door. But not before Giles, with a slightly guilty look, discretely filched a bag of corn chips from Xander's arms and spirited off with them.

On the way home, Alec's stomach began to gurgle loudly.

"Whoa, Giles Junior, you need a drink or something? Settle your stomach?" Xander asked from the front seat.

Alec smiled slightly and turned away from the others to gently open his jacket. Acid was beginning to dribble out from his body, having already, Alec guessed, eaten its way clean through his stomach. Prying apart the steaming hole with his fingernails to get a better look verified this - for a moment, he could see the clear syrupy like acid froth as it tried to bubble away his skin; he could see the pink of his own stomach organ with a tiny hole burned through it.

And then the acid just gave up and he watched as his stomach healed itself, muscle folded back over to protect it, and skin knitted itself back together.

"No thanks Xander. Just had a drink, didn't agree with me it seems," Alec replied off handedly.

"Whew! I can tell, dude, crack a window!"

Alec chuckled and rolled down a window as Willow smiled prettily at him.

"That's okay, honey, I don't mind if you are occasionally stinky, so long as we get some better food in you, you have to be careful what you put in that tummy of yours, you know?" she insisted, reaching over to pat his smooth stomach.

"As you say my love, though I'll warn you: I have a heartier stomach than you might think."

"He gets that from me," Giles put in, "All that English food has bestowed upon him great intestinal fortitude."

Alec discreetly spit out the window then watched the spittle landed on the street and began to eat through the pavement.

"You have no idea," was all Alec said.


	17. Chapter 15 Roadtrip

  
The five weary demon slayers entered the Magic Box and proceeded to drop into the nearest chairs available. Xander threw Alec a towel, which the latter caught gratefully and began to dab at some of the demonic rat-blood stuck to his shirt.

"Where'd everybody go?" Willow asked, looking around the empty store.

Giles followed her gaze around the room. "I'm really not certain," he replied frowning.

" 'Went to a quiet place to open a dimensional rift to the demonic plane. Love, Anya,' " Faith read from a piece of paper on a table.

Xander snorted. "Answers that," he commented wryly, then furrowed his brow in confusion as Alec headed to the back room, which, oddly, had the door closed. "Wait a second. Weren't Buffy and Spike here, too?" he asked.

"Hey," Alec exclaimed, "this door's locked." Tentatively, he put an ear to the door, just in time to hear a series of thumps, followed by a "bloody hell!" and a few more thumps. Grinning, Alec moved away from the door as it opened, revealing a very bedraggled looking blond Slayer wearing only a black t-shirt far too big for her.

"Uh, … hi," she greeted meekly, turning red. Alec chuckled as he looked past her shoulder to see Spike, clad only in black boxers, hopping around on one foot, trying to tug on a pair of black jeans.

"Oh, sod all!" he cried out before tumbling to the floor in a tangled knot of denim and frustrated vampire. Buffy turned to regard her lover with a wry smile before turning back to her brother.

"Just give me two minutes," she implored before hurriedly closing the door in his face.

Alec laughed quietly and returned to the common area of the Magic Shop.

Xander looked up. "What's going on? Are they in there or not?" he asked, sounding a little testy.

"Yeah," Alec nodded slowly, drawing the word out, "they're in there."

"Well? What's going on?" Faith insisted.

Alec shrugged and walked over to a table to look at an open book. "Tension relief," he stated simply, not looking up from the book. For a few moments, the words didn't register, then slow grins spread across the faces of Xander and Faith. They turned to look at the back room with its closed door, then back to Alec, who had a crooked grin creeping across his face.

Willow laughed lightly. "Must be the impending apocalypse," she suggested as Alec walked over to her.

"That does seem to be the general consensus," he agreed before leaning forward and planting a kiss on the young witch's head. Willow beamed up at him before getting up from her seat and heading over to the computer.

Buffy and Spike entered the room, amidst much tugging in of shirts and straightening of hair. "Hi," Buffy greeted the group cheerfully.

Spike mumbled some kind of greeting and walked over to his now-dry jacket to get a cigarette. Everyone did their best to ignore the lovers' rather incriminating state of physical disarray. Buffy continued to smile inanely until she noticed the splatter stains on Alec's shirt.

"What happened?" she asked, frowning.

"We had a little… adventure," Alec offered reluctantly.

Buffy turned to Xander. "Xander, what happened?" she demanded.

"Alec infected a rat with one of the demonic parasites, which turned it into a zombie cannibal monster, Faith cut its head off and Alec blew it up," he said in a rush and sent an apologetic look to Alec. "Sorry, man, but she can beat me up."

"So can I," Alec growled back as Buffy shook her head.

"Can I have that again? In full detail this time?" she asked sardonically. Rolling his eyes, Alec quickly regaled to Buffy about Willow's findings and his rather disastrous attempt to learn more about the parasites.

"What happened to the other two parasites?" Buffy asked.

"Destroyed," Giles responded. "One was still in the jar which Alec threw at the creature before setting it on fire. The other was on the microscope, which I took the liberty of disposing of, before we left."

"I leave you alone for five minutes, big brother." Buffy said in a cute, condescending voice as she patted Alec's cheek.

Alec didn't know if he wanted to laugh, or kill her, so he settled for swatting her hand away irritably. "Knock it off, sis," he said. "I have enough going on without-"

Then he stopped, and frowned at Buffy; she was cradling the hand he'd knocked away. No, not the hand - the wrist - and her face was drawn in pain as if attempting to hide just how much such a casual tap on the arm had hurt her.

"What the hell happened to you?" Alec demanded.

The others gathered around to see what all the commotion was about, everyone except for Spike, who snorted, choosing instead to remain where he was and light a cigarette.

Buffy smiled placating, attempting to draw away from her brother. "It's nothing, bro, just a little love-…"

Without warning, Alec's hand shot out like a striking cobra, grabbed her arm, well away from the wounded wrist, dragged Buffy closer to him and hiked up her shirt sleeve: large, angry, black bruises covered her wrist all the way around it, and they resembled-

"Fingers," Alec bit out. "Those are fingers. This was done by someone's hand?"

"Really, Alec, its nothing."

Alec wasn't buying it; without releasing his grip, he gently probed the bruises with his free hand, lightly feeling the bones underneath. Buffy gasped in pain just as Alec found what he had been looking for.

"Buffy, this is broken."

"Broken?" Giles commented, concerned - breaking a Slayer's wrist wasn't the easiest of things to do in the world. "Good lord, Buffy. What on earth happened?"

"I had a little run-in…" Buffy said hesitatingly, drawing the sentence out as long as possible, "….with…-"

"With who?!" Alec growled.

"Dracula," Buffy said with a sigh.

Carefully, Alec released her arm and locked eyes with Spike, who was doing his best to not pay any attention to all of this.

"He dies," Alec said simply, which instantly convinced everyone present that he meant it. "Spike, mate, grab your coat, we have a vampire to kill."

"Now hang on there, bro," Buffy said.

"Yeah, I mean, we don't know where he is, do we?" Willow added.

Giles chimed in. "Furthermore, son, we're uncertain about his powers and abili-"

"HE BROKE BUFFY'S WRIST!" Alec roared.

Everyone leapt back in alarm, except Giles, who sighed and took off his glasses, beginning to clean them.

"He hurt Buffy and I'm going to put him in the ground! In pieces!" Alec cried, his fists clenched in white-knuckled fury and darkness beginning to ooze out from between his fingers.

"Alec," Buffy said quietly, "rage won't help us and neither will payback. Right now, though, trust me, Dracula's more than you can handle at the moment."

"Then bet on him rather than your own brother, Buffy. But I guarantee you I'm coming back with his head on a bloody stick!"

Willow stood behind Alec with a very worried expression her face. She began to take out a small pouch of herbs when Xander caught her eye and shook his head vigorously NO. Willow hesitated, but put her spell ingredients away, remembering what had happened the last time she had tried to influence her lover with magic.

"Alec, Dracula knows more about what is occurring here in Sunnydale, and within the larger world, in regards to the Hellmouth. He is also the only person who understands the connection between it and Dawn," Giles said calmly, though he emphasized the last point. "If you are serious about protecting Buffy, Dawn, and everyone else, you will not confront Dracula and risk either depriving us of your martial prowess by being injured or slain, nor depriving us of vital information by slaughtering him."

The results were instant: Alec forced his hands open, fingers stiff and palms up. The darkness was gone and color was returning to his skin. He closed his eyes, took three deep breaths, and opened them again. The pupils of his eyes had begun to darken noticeably during his tirade, but now they were their normal shade of green and violet.

"Fine. Fine. Okay, Dad, we do it your way," Alec relented. There was a collective sigh of relief from everyone.

Buffy caught Willow's eye and mouthed, "_Wow_." The redhead just gulped and nodded.

Alec caught the look and turned on Buffy. "But _you_, my dear, are going to be a whole hell of a lot more careful and you're going to _avoid_ Dracula at all costs," he told her firmly. She opened her mouth to protest, but Alec cut her off with an angry narrowing of his eyes. "No complaints, sis. This is the second time he's gotten the drop on you, though at least this time it didn't end with his teeth in your neck…-" A sudden thought struck Alec and he opened his mouth again to ask.

"NO!" Buffy cried out. "God, chill out! No, there was no neck snackage of any kind, I promise you. Things just got physical and I got careless and that's all, I swear."

Alec sighed. He had no idea if she was being straight with him, though she usually was. Still, he could sense she was holding something back. "Fine," he acquiesced. "All right then, you just be more careful, and in the meantime, I'm going to go do… something."

"You want some company?" Willow asked, sounding meek and still a little intimidated.

"No thanks, baby," was all Alec said as he stalked past them all and entered the back room, closing the door behind him and locking it with an audible click.

There was a long, awkward silence, punctuated by everyone whom had breath letting it out slowly as the tension drained out of the room.

"What do you think he's doing in there?" Xander quipped with a grin.

_Wham!_ came the blow from behind the door against one of the adjoining walls. The sound made everyone jump and the force of it caused a jar on a shelf, mounted on the said wall, to tumble to the floor and shatter.

"What he does," Buffy said forlornly and sighed in equal parts affection and exasperation. She turned to Giles. "You know he takes after you, right,_Ripper_?"

"You have no idea," was all Giles said in reply.

"I love my honey," Willow said quietly, in a tone much like Buffy's.

"How do you put up with that guy?" Xander asked her, askance.

"He's never forgotten anything that was important to me, unlike you Mr. 'Forgets his best friend's birthday two years in a row' ".

"And for that you stay with a guy that makes Jason Vorhees look mellow?"

"Hey, Red?" Faith asked, speaking for the first time during all this. "Does he put that much intensity into _everything_ he does?" Willow turned bright red and bit her lip as Faith laughed. "Thought so. So there's that in his favor, too, eh, kiddo?"

"I need to clean this up," Willow mumbled and went to get a broom as Faith guffawed.

Buffy meanwhile turned her head to see Spike staring at her intently, his face grim. Without a word they both turned to face the closed door and the shattered jar on the floor. Their expressions became grimmer.

Alec came out of the room a few minutes later. Everyone looked up warily as he approached Buffy and asked.

"Say, where's Angel at?"

"He went with Anya out to Breaker's Woods to cast the spell," Buffy answered, willing to let Alec get away with the shift in the conversation topic. "She has to do some 'reach out and touch someone' action with a demon, remember?"

Xander looked up with a scowl. "Why did Angel go with her?" he asked, a note of protective boyfriend creeping into his voice.

"Because exposure to Sunnydale alone at night can be hazardous to your health?"

"Okay, I'll buy that," Xander admitted with a grimace and a hurried nod before turning to Giles. "So, G-man, what's our next move?"

Giles glared at the young man. "Firstly, do not call me that, …" Xander held his hands up placatingly as the older man continued, "…and secondly, I'd imagine our next course of action should be to find out whatever this 'Grigori Estate' is that the Count mentioned."

Willow peeked over the top of her computer monitor. "I've got Miss Calendar's 'search engine-o-mighty' chewing on it right now, it should only take a few minutes," she assured them.

Giles nodded and turned back to Buffy. "Did you find anything useful in the Slayer diaries?" he asked.

Buffy blushed. "Well, to tell you the truth I… uh… didn't get that much more research done after you guys left." All eyes turned to Spike, who was seated in a chair, smoking a cigarette.

"What?" he asked defensively. "She started it. Little maiden of hormones here," he gestured to the blonde Slayer. Buffy chucked a pillow at him. "Well, you did," he growled at her before piping down. She continued to glare at him as she got up and picked up another Slayer diary, this one looking much older than the rest, and began to read.

Impatience making him ansty, Alec sighed, and began flipping through a book of Walt Whitman, when Willow's voice perked up.

"Got it!" she squealed, holding her hands up high above her head to wrap her arms around Alec, who had come over to inspect her findings. She looked up at him and demanded, "Kiss me!"

Alec cheerfully obliged before turning his attention to the computer screen. "What do you got, princess?"

Giles and Faith came over to look at the screen as Willow began to explain.

"Well, it turns out 'Grigori', in Christian lore, refers to a group of angels called 'watcher angels'. No relation, I'm sure," she directed at the older man with a wry look. Giles smiled down at the red headed hacker before she continued, "In any case, Grigori Estate is very hush-hush, only reason why I got any hits on it at all is because there was an incident there about six years back."

Giles frowned. "What manner of incident?" he asked.

Willow read a little further before making a face and responding.

"Uh… it says here there was some sort of disturbance… that resulted in multiple homicides," she continued to read. "Coroner's report disappeared, ditto with all the police work, the only thing we do have for information is the name of the place, the year, and a police code for disturbance and another for multiple homicides." She looked up, perplexed. "That's it. No eyewitnesses or statements, not even any photographs."

Alec shook his head. "That seems awfully cloak and dagger. Can you get a location?"

"Uh… yeah," Willow frowned in concentration; hitting a few more keys, new data flowed across the screen and she leaned in to read. "Looks like it's in upstate New York, near Crown Point, no address though." She turned to the rest of the group. "I have a cousin who summers there. She used to send me postcards."

Giles nodded and sighed. "Well, I suppose I could call Information."

Alec snorted. "And once you get the number, what are you going to do, call up Grigori Estate and ask them if they know of any way to prevent the end of the world?" he chuckled as Giles frowned.

"Good point," he turned to his son. "What do you suggest we do?"

Alec shrugged. "Only thing we can do - we go out there ourselves."

Giles' eyes widened. "Alec, it's on the other side of the country. For the lot of us flying, that's going to be hideously expensive airfare."

Alec frowned frustrated.

"Well, why don't we drive then?" Xander piped in. "My uncle's got a huge R.V. I'm sure we could commandeer it for a week or so. With his license suspended, he sure as heck isn't going to be driving it anytime soon."

Willow nodded. "That's right. When Xander and I were kids, we'd play hide and seek in it for hours, it's so huge," she looked up at Alec and smiled. "We used to call it the Godzilla-mobile."

Alec smiled wryly. "And I'd always been told that size didn't matter."

"She lied," Faith put in without hesitating. Alec threw her an amused look.

"Uh… guys?" Buffy began hesitantly. "Two things. One, we have the problem of traveling with vampires…"

"I can handle that, luv," Spike interjected, "a little tinfoil, a few rolls of duct tape. Bingo! Instant sun-proofing!" He folded his arms, pleased with himself.

Buffy continued, "Okay. Two, if I tell my mother that I'm going on a road trip to New York on Christmas, she'll pitch a fit. Plus, I can't leave her and Dawn alone with Swamp Thing wandering the sewers."

Alec sighed, before turning back to Xander. "Just exactly _how_ big was this R.V?"

"That's a big R.V." Alec admitted. It was two hours later as Xander lumbered the mammoth machine up the darkened street and parked it across the street from The Magic Box, " 'Bus' might be a more accurate term."

Even Spike was impressed, giving a low appreciative whistle. "That's a lair on wheels, to be sure." He turned to Angel, who had returned from his excursion with Anya. "Hey, poof! Think I could get this thing to hit eighty in over eighty-five?"

Angel snorted. "Not if I have anything to say about it," he commented dryly, before turning to Buffy. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Buffy shrugged. "Not a clue, but it seems to be the best way to go about things, at least for now." She turned to her sister. "Now, remember Dawn, this is a big important, save-the-world kind of deal, so once we get to Crown Point, you do exactly what we say, when we say it, or we are checking you into a nice hotel with lots of adult supervision, and you're staying put until we leave, all right?"

This was the only way Buffy could feel comfortable about going. Joyce had been convinced, under protest, to visit their Aunt Sheila in LA. for the Christmas season so that it took her out of the picture. Buffy figured that taking Dawn with them, however, would minimize any chances of a repeat performance of the other night. She and Alec had discussed whether or not it would be better to just check Dawn into some hotel in the city, but Alec had suggested against it, claiming that Dawn would be safest with them, in case something came gunning for her. Buffy had reluctantly relented to his logic. Dawn, however, had grave reservations about this plan.

"In other words, I have to be stuck in a giant car with you and your friends for three days, just so I can be bossed around or be dumped into the first convenient hotel in the middle of nowhere New York? Perfect!" She folded her arms and jutted her lip out in a way that usually signaled a prelude to an argument. In a stroke of divine intervention, Alec came out from behind the bus, having been helping Spike and Angel load luggage into the cargo compartment. He came up behind Buffy. "Give it another thirty minutes and we'll be in great shape. Should be able to leave before sunrise," he told her.

Buffy looked around at the hustle and bustle in awe at how quickly it had sprung around them. Willow was on-line getting a map, Faith was assisting, Anya was talking to Giles regarding her meeting with D'Hoffryn, and the vampires were busy loading the bus.

"Sounds like a plan," Buffy nodded, commenting approvingly… and noticed Dawn's sudden acute interest now that Alec had entered the conversation.

"Hey, princess," the half-demon turned and greeted her, smiling, his voicing warming considerably.

Dawn fairly melted. "Hi, Alec," she replied shyly back, looking down, then up through her bangs, biting her lower lip slightly. Offering a smile to both of the sisters, Alec headed back to continue preparations.

Dawn looked up suddenly at her sister. "Alec's coming with us?"

Buffy grinned and nodded. "Uh huh. He's officially part of the Scooby gang. But, I mean, if you really don't want to come along, I suppose Aunt Maggie wouldn't mind looking out for you for a while," she smiled.

Dawn pretended to consider. "Well, I mean if Alec is coming, I suppose this won't completely suck. I'll put my bag on the camper." She turned haughtily and walked towards the camper.

Smiling slightly, Buffy turned and walked over to Giles, who had just finished talking with Anya.

"How we doing?" she asked.

He turned and shrugged. "It's a little complicated, and I have to clarify between Anya's running commentary and the actual information received, but as near as I can deduce, D'Hoffryn has declared neutrality. He won't actively assist, but he's agreed to make what resources he has at his disposal available to us, for the duration, anyhow."

Buffy sighed; it was really more than she had any right to expect.

"What about the monster R.V. - how's it look?" she queried, changing the subject. Xander approached, answering.

"Tank's full and the interior's clean." He turned to regard it. "Spike and Angel are in the process of sun-proofing it now. Had to raid the all-night hardware store for the MacGuyver tape and tinfoil."

Giles cleared his throat. "Xander, are you entirely certain you are capable of driving this the distance required?"

Xander nodded. "Sure thing. I'll handle days, and Angel can handle nights." He leveled a stern finger at Buffy. "Under no circumstances is Spike to get behind that wheel. I don't want to wake up in the morning and have a roadside bar as a hood ornament."

Buffy chuckled. "I wouldn't worry," she pointed to Alec and Spike who were checking off a list, "Alec and Spike seem to be in charge of working out some sort of distraction program for the duration of the trip, which reminds me," she turned back to Xander, "you on top of snack detail?"

He nodded. "Anya and I are on it. Gonna go raid the Circle K in a little bit." He cocked an eyebrow. "Any personal requests?"

Buffy looked around before whispering in a conspiring tone. "Those little frosted orange cakes, with the cream in the middle?"

"Little Debbie?" he asked.

She nodded and bit her lip, playfully, then confessed. "I love those things."

Xander chuckled. "Will do. Can't save the world on an empty stomach," he waggled his eyebrows and headed back to the R.V.

"Smokes?" Alec asked, consulting a list.

"Check," Spike responded, holding up several large boxes of cigarettes.

"Booze?"

"Check." Spike gestured to several bottles of whiskey.

"Coffee?"

Spike shifted his gaze to a portable coffee pot. "I think the Slayers have got that covered, so check."

"Tunes?"

"Check." Spike patted a case of cassettes and held up a ghetto blaster.

"Map?"

Spike frowned. "Bloody hell, man, I'm in charge of the essentials. Leave the frills to the womenfolk." With a snort of derision, he went back to packing his goods.

Laughing quietly, Alec walked over to Willow, who was online getting the map.

"How's it look, lover?"

"Awful. Days and days on the road with no privacy," she frowned and pouted at him playfully.

He grinned and pointed at the laptop. "I meant the map," he clarified.

Willow 'oh'-ed in mock understanding, and grinned before turning her gaze to the computer.

"Not a problem, just get on the transcontinental highway all the way into New York state," she replied.

Alec nodded and kissed her hair. "Well done, princess." He smiled and headed away to help Spike with the "essentials".

Thirty minutes or so later, they were ready to go.

"All aboard!" Xander yelled, then grinned. "I've always wanted to say that." The collected group filed passed him and tossed personal possessions on various fold-out beds, staking claims for their own. Xander called back to them. "All right, kids, double bunk where you can!"

People began to pair off and settle: Buffy went with Spike, Alec with Willow, Anya took an empty space for Xander and her, Angel slung a hammock across two chairs, Faith did the same, Giles had brought a small inflatable mattress for himself, and Dawn unrolled her sleeping bag out onto a large patch of carpet.

"All set?" Xander asked.

"Ready to go," Buffy replied.

"Almost, luv," Spike interrupted, reaching over he flipped on the switch to his ghetto blaster and 'My Way' erupted from the oversized speakers. The bleached vampire grinned happily, and Alec sat up, drumming on the window with the palms of his hands in time with the music, grinning like an idiot.

" 'Regrets, I've had a few!" they sang in unison, howling at the top of their lungs, as the R.V. pulled away. "But, then again, too few to mention! And more, much more than this I did it my way!"

The pair ended as the song did, and others began hurling pillows at them.

"Ingrates! The whole bloody lot of you!" Spike sputtered as they left Sunnydale.

The hours passed swiftly. The group made it out of the state and pulled into a rest stop so everyone could get some shuteye. Spike's sun-proofing had held up nicely throughout the day, and come sundown they would hit the road again. Giles had had the foresight to bring a guitar and was kind enough to play some tunes including his infamous rendition of "Behind Blue Eyes". Afterwards, when the former librarian started playing the first few bars of a familiar tune, Alec jumped in with vocals as well, and together they cut a pretty smooth rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone" that had even the normally dour Angel bobbing his head to the tune.

Willow smiled adoringly at Alec. "It figures, why do I always fall for musicians?" she asked.

Buffy frowned. "Did Tara play an instrument?"

The redhead nodded. "She played the flute pretty well."

Faith, who was seated in the passenger seat next to Xander up front, turned, and opened her mouth to make a comment, but Xander shushed her.

"Don't say it, Faith, we've all seen 'American Pie'."

Faith grinned and settled back to watch the road.

Dawn was smiling at Alec as he and his father continued to play. There was something about him, for her at least, that made the rest of the world fade away. She smiled, and rocked in time to the blues that were being played. Everyone was surprised however, when Spike removed a harmonica from his jacket and started to play along with the others. Buffy sent him an amazed look as he blew out a long, complicated melody, dancing his fingers against the instrument. When he finished, the vampire grinned at his lover.

"Harmonica's a snap when you don't need to breath, luv," the vampire added grinning.

Alec smirked at this and continued to sing.

Anya turned to Buffy, and commented, "This is interesting music."

Buffy shook her head. "No, Anya, this is not just 'music'." The Slayer gestured to her Watcher, his half-demon son, and her vampire lover making music together. "THIS is a Ripley's-worthy Kodak moment." She grinned and started to drum on her legs in time with the music. The song ended amidst much applause, Buffy, Willow, and Dawn being the most enthusiastic of the applause donators. Willow wrapped herself around her boyfriend, who had shed his trademark duster, and was clad only in a white t-shirt and black jeans.

"So, know any Creedence Clearwater?" she asked wryly.

He smirked up at her. "Since when does the Lorrena McKennit poster child listen to Creedence Clearwater?" he asked.

Willow smiled enigmatically. "Well, you're not the only one with secrets," she replied lightly. He smiled and kissed her cheek. Dawn's face fell at that and she abruptly left, sitting down between Faith and Xander, her arms crossed. Sparing a look from the highway, Xander shot her an inquiring look.

"What's up, little lady?" he asked her lightly. She glared at him through narrowed eyes.

"Guys suck, that's what's the matter!" she bit out. Faith laughed and slapped her on the back, nearly sending her sprawling.

"Way to go, D," she smiled wryly, "it took me until I was seventeen to figure _that_ little truth out."

Dawn frowned unhappily and turned back to look at Alec; Willow was on his lap as she tried to teach him some chords on the guitar. Faith followed her eyes and nodded in comprehension.

"Ah," she purred, causing Dawn's head to whip back to face her, humiliated. "I see what the issue is." Faith got up and took Dawn's hand. "Come on, kid, let's go have a girl-to-girl talk." Dawn reluctantly followed her to a private corner of the bus. She sat opposite the scarred slayer, who smiled knowingly at her.

"Looks like the 'little lady' is coveting the witch's man," Faith observed knowingly. Dawn blushed, Faith put a hand to her shoulder reassuringly.

"Listen, Dawn, can I tell you something, chick to chick?" she asked her.

Dawn shrugged miserably and mumbled downcast, "I guess so."

"First off, you and I both know you're not a little kid," the older woman began. "You're what, fourteen?" she asked.

"Fifteen in May," Dawn replied.

Faith acquiesced the point. "Anyhow, the point is, you're more woman than kid. Your heart does funny things to you at this age. But you're never too young to fall really head over heels for a guy," she leaned in to whisper conspiringly, "remind me to tell you about my Sunday school priest, who I had the hots for from age seven to sixteen."

Dawn frowned at her. "You had the hots for a _priest_?" she asked, confounded.

Faith nodded and grinned. "In the _worst_ way, _amiga_." She shook her head. "The point, though, is that this was me. It was a crush, not anything more," she looked over past Dawn's shoulder at Alec who was still trying to learn the guitar, then turned back to Dawn. "How's it feel, when you're around the guy. I mean, is it a 'I want to take him some place private and do things that would make my mother rotate in her grave' sort of down-low tickle, or is it something more?" she inquired.

Dawn blushed before answering. "It isn't like that. I mean," she bit her lower lip and smiled, "he does have _great_ lips doesn't he?"

Faith grinned and nodded. "He's definitely quite the honey."

Dawn continued. "But, I don't know, it's not like a… you know..." She blushed.

"A 'jump his bones till the cows come home' kind of thing?" she supplied helpfully.

Dawn blushed, nodding. "Yeah, it's not like that, it's more like..." She leaned in closer to Faith and whispered, "Every time he's in the same room with me, it's like there's no one else. There's just him. And every time he touches me, even if it's just to hold my hand or touch my hair," Dawn closed her eyes blissfully and swooned, "I feel so… great. Warm and safe, like I'm glowing," she opened her eyes and looked down. "I'm nuts, aren't I?"

Faith just grinned and shook her head, chuckling. "Worse. You're in love, and, _boy_, have you got it bad. Have you ever told him?"

Dawn shook her head vehemently. "No way! Whenever I get around him I can barely get out two words. Besides," she sighed and, looking at Alec and Willow wistfully, growled, "I doubt little miss witch would take kindly to it."

Faith's eyes widened. "Meow!" she commented appreciatively. Chuckling, she placed a hand on Dawn's slim shoulder. "You've got to tell him, girl. Sooner or later, you've got to come clean. Cause there's nothing worse than loving someone that doesn't know." Faith's face suddenly frowned unhappily and she turned her gaze over at the crowd.

Dawn followed her line of sight and gasped, as she realized just whom Faith was staring at.

"Angel?" she squeaked, shocked.

Faith snapped her head back to glare at her.

"Keep it down, will ya, D?" she flicked her eyes back and forth nervously. "No need to tell the whole world," she hissed at her.

Dawn swallowed and nodded, eyes wide. "Does he, I mean, have you said…?"

Faith shook her head. "Nah. Him and I aren't a possibility. Too much bad history." She sighed forlornly. "I did some pretty awful things to him way back when. We're square and all, but it's not going to happen."

Dawn felt a rush of sympathy for the older woman. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "How did you know? I mean, that you were, you know…?"

"In love with the guy?" Faith replied. Dawn nodded. The younger Slayer sighed and leaned back in her chair, her eyes going glassy as she thought back.

"It was during B's last visit to L.A. She'd come gunning for me after some serious nastiness, and Angel stood up for me." She shook her head. "Me, the gal that had tried to kill him and steal his soul and stuff. He was standing up for me, and standing up against this girl that he had a serious thing for." Faith sighed. "No one had ever done that for me. It made me feel something I'd never felt. That's why I turned myself in to the cops, otherwise this bitchy chick cop would have thrown Angel into a cell with an eastward facing window." She came back to the present. "I couldn't let him fry. Not after everything he'd done for me. So I turned myself in, and pretty much chalked up the rest of my life as time to be served," she finished.

Dawn regarded her with a mixture of compassion and pity.

"So what happened next? I mean, did you know then that you loved him?" she asked.

Faith shook her head. "No. It was after I got this," she gestured to the long scar slashing down her eye. "The skank responsible was packing a shiv at the time, I got careless and she cut me. I went nuts on her, seriously wailing, I was all raring to kill her. I wanted to kill her, and I just stopped. Because I knew that I would be letting Angel down if I did."

She looked up at Dawn. "I did a lot of death-dealing when I first came to Sunnydale. Enjoyed it, too. Angel tried to get me back on the straight and narrow. I blew him off and tried to kill him, and wound up a vegetable for the better part of a year." She sighed. "I lost everything: friends, a future, a sense of purpose. I got taken down about as far as someone could go. Despite everything, when I got to L.A., Angel did his best to help me, he forgave me for everything I'd done to him and tried to help me help myself. He gave me hope that I could be a good guy, you know. A Slayer again. 'Someone to be counted' as he put it, instead of just some murdering psycho-chick." She shook her head, trying to swallow a lump in her throat.

"Anyhow, I couldn't let him down. So, I didn't kill her, and as the prison cutter was stitching my face back together, I knew that I loved him. Truly, madly, deeply, I loved the guy," she turned aching eyes back at Dawn, "and he'll never know cause I don't got the guts to tell him." She sighed, again, and cleared her throat. Dawn felt a case of sniffles creeping up on her.

"Why not? If you love him that much why don't you tell him?" Dawn implored.

Faith snorted. "What, are you kidding? I can't do that," she retorted.

"Why not?" Dawn asked.

Faith snorted again derisively. "And say what? 'Sorry about trying to kill you all those times. How about dinner?' " she scoffed, then became serious. "Besides, he's still in love with your sister, in a major way," she replied quietly.

Dawn's eyebrows nearly leapt off her face as she whirled around to regard the brooding vampire, sitting apart from everyone else, staring out the window, streetlights flashing across his face.

"Angel still loves Buffy?" Dawn whispered.

Faith scoffed. "What? Are you kidding? Majorly, you should see the look on his face every time her and her bleached blond beau are together." She shook her head. "Angel loves her like crazy," she sighed and slumped her shoulders, "and as long as he does, my chances with him are about on par with a snowball's survival rate in Hell," she finished morosely.

Dawn nodded sadly. "I see your point." Tentatively, she reached out and placed a hand over the older woman's hands. "I'm really sorry," she whispered. Faith smiled a little and shook herself hard, patting Dawn's tiny hand.

"Hey, when did you become Mother Teresa? Come on, forget about it," Faith tried to quip lightly.

Dawn shook her head. "I know how it feels, Faith, it's the most wonderful awful feeling in the world."

Faith nodded and sniffled before regarding the younger girl wryly.

"Hey, I thought I was supposed to be comforting _you_," she commented dryly.

Dawn shrugged. "I'm feeling better now anyhow." She turned to look at Alec. "He's kind, and sweet, and he takes me seriously, and he's saved my life a few times..." she smiled before turning back to face Faith and shrugged unhappily, "... I guess that'll have to do for now."

Faith grinned and tousled her hair affectionately.

"Yeah, well, we'll see how long that resolve holds out when the nights get cold and lonely," she retorted wryly.

"It's not like..." Dawn began, blushing.

"It's not like that," Faith finished for her sardonically, nodding her head indulgently, "whatever you say." Then she grew serious again. "You're not going to spill the beans are you?" she asked looking a little worried.

"Are you?" Dawn she asked back.

Faith grinned and looked puzzled. "About what?" she asked innocently. Dawn laughed and nodded.

"Okay, cool." Flashing the Slayer a grateful smile, she headed back to join the others, who were engaged in a heated debate.

"I'm telling you, MacIntyre was far much more the man than that tool B.J," Spike declared. "He helped Hawkeye build the still."

Alec snorted and waved a hand, dismissively.

"Spoken like a true lush," he retorted. "B.J. was an infinitely more loyal friend to Hawkeye than Trapper was. Remember, the series finale? Who came to visit Hawkeye after he had a nervous breakdown? B.J," Alec finished triumphantly.

"That's what I'm bloody saying! If Trapper had still been on the show he would have never let Hawkeye have a nervous breakdown. He'd have filled him full of martinis and told him to sleep it off," Spike retorted vehemently.

Buffy chuckled, deeply amused by the debate.

"The both of you are children. You know that right?" she commented wryly. "MASH has been over for years, this debate is pointless."

Alec and Spike both shot her nasty looks.

"Well I always thought that Houlihan-" Anya spoke up.

"Oh, screw Houlihan!" Alec and Spike cried out in unison, flashing each other grins as Anya's eyes widened in miffed surprise.

"Moisten tart," Spike growled.

"Hear, hear," Alec agreed. Giles cleared his throat and turned to Willow, who was regarding her lover with wry affection, finding his addiction to MASH deeply cute.

"Willow, where are we right now?" he asked politely.

Shaking her head and laughing quietly, she turned from the dispute to the laptop on the table, pursing her lips she frowned at the screen.

"According to the GPS we've just left Arizona and are in New Mexico," she looked up at Giles. "Xander wants to avoid going through Nevada, says with all the Vegas holiday traffic it'd be a real hassle," she turned back to the computer, "we're making pretty good time considering."

Giles nodded. "Thank you, Willow, do keep me informed, please?"

Willow nodded and turned back to the screen.

"Bloody Hell, can't we stop somewhere and stretch our legs?" Spike demanded, loudly.

Buffy turned and faced Xander.

"How about it, Xander, feel like stopping somewhere? Besides, you could use the rest, and I wouldn't mind a meal that didn't come out of a bag."

"Yeah," Alec and Dawn both chimed in at unison. Alec turned to flash her a smile, she blushed and returned it shyly.

Xander frowned and peered at the road signs flashing by.

"Okay, well, there's supposed to be some kind of truckers café around her someplace."

Spike came up and peered out the large windshield.

" 'The Pig and Whistle truckers tavern?' " he read the road sign, frowned, and muttered. "Sounds a like a pretty namby-pamby establishment."

Buffy came up behind him and swatted him playfully.

"Quit whining. You said you wanted to stretch your legs. Sounds like as good a place as any." Despite Spike's mutterings, she turned to Xander. "Sounds like a plan Xander, take the exit."

Xander nodded and guided the lumbering machine off the highway and onto the off-ramp for the Pig and Whistle tavern.

Buffy sighed and stretched her arms above her head.

"Besides, it'll be a nice change of pace to sit down to a quiet meal," she turned and threw a look back at Alec. "Right, big brother?" she asked wryly.

Alec just nodded in agreement. "Nice change of pace," he reiterated. 


	18. Chapter 16 An Eye for You

"Now," Spike said grinning as he got off the R.V, "_this_ is my kind of place!" he laughed.

Buffy got off and eyed the scene with awe. The tavern was a huge squatted building. Fires burned freely in the dirt as bikers howled and raced their bikes around the bonfires in circles, shooting guns into the air. Spike clicked his tongue in amusement and sauntered off towards the bar. The others filed off the R.V. in stunned disbelief.

"Place looks jumping, B'," Faith commented wryly. Buffy turned an accusatory look at Xander, who just threw his hands up in defense.

"Don't blame me. This place wasn't in Rand McNally," he responded defensively. Seething, the blond Slayer turned her gaze back to survey the anarchy.

Giles cleared his throat, and commented, "Buffy, I'm not entirely sure this is an appropriate environment to for Dawn to be exposed to." He started as a particularly loud war whoop ended in a biker knocking another biker off his bike with a two-by-four. "Or for us, for that matter," he added as an afterthought.

Alec snorted slightly. "Somehow the idea of leaving her in the bus all by herself doesn't appeal either," he replied. Dawn carefully scooted closer over to him for security.

"I don't like this, Buffy," Angel stated grimly.

Buffy looked over at him. "I'm sure you've seen worse in your two hundred plus years," she replied dryly.

Angel furrowed his brow in thought.

"Not in this country," he denied, then admitted, "Calcutta, maybe."

Buffy snorted and rolled her eyes.

"Place is like Tarantino's wet dream," Alec commented sourly. "Anyone sees Salma Hayek start dancing with a boa, we flee."

"Speak for yourself. I'll take Salma with fangs any day," Spike countered licking his own fangs.

"Look - we're here, let's make the best of it. Dawn," Buffy turned around to regard her sister, who was still trying to lurk inconspicuously in Alec's shadow, "stay close, and don't look anyone in the eye," she frowned at the girl's attire and reached over to zip her sweater vest closed, "and keep yourself inconspicuous," she added.

Dawn squirmed and eyeballed her sister's outfit, consisting of one of her trademark mini-skirts and a tight fitting shirt.

"Look who's talking," she retorted. Buffy's face darkened but didn't say anything.

"Nobody is touching you, Dawn," Alec vowed in a tone that promised impending violence, "nor any of the rest of you. You have my word; the first hands that come upon you will be relocated to the floor with their owner's head following right behind them."

Everyone turned to stare at him as Spike laughed.

"What, all by yourself then, mate?"

"If need be."

Faith whistled low as she took in the brutality around them: there had to be over a hundred heavily armed, psychotically violent bikers and truckers around them. She then proceeded to examine Alec's expression and came to one inescapable conclusion: if Alec felt any of them were threatened, he'd slaughter every last one of them.

"Dusk, bro, I say this with affection, respect, and the voice of experience of a convicted mass-murderer - you need to lighten up," she stated simply.

"Seriously," Buffy commented.

"Right, I can see the headlines in the post now – 'Deranged Englishman massacres bar patrons; many found bludgeoned to death with stick removed from the assailant's own arse'," Spike teased with a grin, slapping his friend on the shoulder, " 'Meanwhile, all the waitresses and booze went missing; the Englishman's best mate is currently under investigation.' "

Alec relaxed at his friend's humor, his fists unclenching. Buffy sent Spike a look of gratitude, the vampire nodded and then continued his diatribe.

"Come on then, let's GO already. Before all the good strippers are taken," he barked out and, half-dragging his lover behind him, Spike strode to the bar doors like a kid in a candy shop. Angel sighed and headed back onto the bus, not really in the mood to watch Buffy and Spike's antics. Willow grabbed Alec's arm.

"Don't you leave my side for a minute, _capiche_?" she demanded.

Dawn grabbed his other arm.

"Yeah, me either," she put in.

Alec smiled wryly and turned to his father. "Shall we?" he asked.

Giles sighed. "Very well, once more into the breach." With a sigh, he took off his glasses, _guys with glasses tended to get bothered in places like this_, and, tucking them away, followed Alec towards the bar, Xander and Anya following.

"You know, this place looks kind of interesting," Anya commented.

Xander frowned at her. "Remind me to never, EVER, let you pick where we go on a date," he replied before entering the smoky bar.

Spike grinned like a happy puppy as he took in the chaos flowing around him. The bar was stacked with every kind of degenerate and manner of scum imaginable. The bleached vampire inhaled the scent of decadence deeply, relishing every moment. The lights in the bar were dim, which was a good thing because nobody wanted to get too close a look at the bar's inhabitants. There was some sort of mariachi band playing in one of the corners, but there weren't any strippers, much to Spike's chagrin and Buffy's relief. But some of the waitresses wore outfits that made Buffy's look downright puritanical in comparison.

The group carefully headed to a table in a darkened corner. There was a very intoxicated patron resting in one of the chairs. Spike strode over to him and, without missing a beat, shoved the comatose patron out of the chair to slump onto the floor. Picking up the chair, he swept the table clean of beer bottles, cigarette butts, and various other objects. They crashed to the floor, shattering loudly, as Spike grinned and plunked down into the chair, throwing his boots onto the table.

Buffy eyed him, but grabbed a seat next to him. Dawn sat next to her, followed by Alec, Willow, Xander, Anya, Giles, and Faith. Spike leaned his head back and snapped his fingers, beckoning to a particularly buxom waitress.

"Drinks, sweets. Whiskey, and keep it coming," he demanded. The waitress nodded, and smiled flirtatiously at him, earning a very dark glare from Buffy. She then turned and left to get the drinks. Spike turned back to the group.

"I could become a regular," he quipped.

Buffy snorted. "Yeah, cheap booze and a bar ho for every table."

Several pairs of eyes turned to regard the petite blond Slayer in surprise.

"I'm telling mom you said that," Dawn threatened.

Buffy shot her a withering look and went back to glaring at Spike, who was having too much fun, watching various bar fights to notice. The drinks arrived without incident and Spike helped himself to a double. He held the brimming glass up in a toast.

"Here's to you, and here's to me, and may we never disagree," he turned and flashed the Slayer a smile, "and should we ever disagree, screw you, here's to me." He downed the shot and slammed the shot glass onto the table as Buffy hit him on the arm hard enough to make him wince. "Goh! That's good!" He grinned and began pouring himself another. 

Alec leaned in onto his elbows and poured a drink for himself as he eyed his friend. "Is there an AA for vampires?" he asked wryly.

Buffy glared at Spike and answered.

"Yeah it's called 'touch that bottle again and you're cut off!' " she bit out.

Spike stopped in mid-pour, regarding the Slayer with a horrified look, not noticing that the glass was now overflowing into a river of whiskey that spilled out and flowed across the table to splatter upon the dirty floor. With a sigh, Spike put the bottle down and poured the shot glass out onto the floor.

"Bollocks," he muttered.

"That's better, lover. I'll make it up to you later." The Slayer smiled at him and kissed his cheek.

Spike snorted in derision.

The laughter from the group died as a shadow fell over the table. They all looked up to regard an absolutely huge biker, clad in leather and very drunk, leering covetously at the women at the table.

"Hey, there, sweet things," he muttered drunkenly.

Alec looked up at the biker and growled – a deep, primal sound, like a wild animal getting ready to pounce. Buffy placed a restraining hand on his arm as Faith got up from the table.

"I got this one," she assured them all, smiling prettily.

"Faith…" Buffy warned.

Faith waved her off as she cozied up to the drunken behemoth. The drunk frowned as he belched into Faith's face.

"Don't want ya, yer damaged goods," he growled, pointing at the scar on her face.

Faith grinned, and wrapped her arms around the biker's neck.

"Not everywhere," she whispered seductively. The drunk smiled, showing several missing teeth. The dark-haired woman leaned in, as if to kiss him, then, jerking his shoulders down, she slammed her knee up high and hard into his crotch. There was a slight crunch and everyone at the table winced.

Spike blanched. "Ouch," he put forth mildly.

The biker's face had turned a very deep red, his mouth flopping open, gasping like a fish. Faith continued to drive her knee into the convulsing biker, twisting and grinding it with all her slayer strength and still smiling prettily.

Alec looked on in horror as he quickly took a glass and put it before Spike demandingly. Spike, who had been watching the spectacle with the morbid intensity one views a train wreck, looked down, confused.

"Excuse me, mate, but your sister just said-"

"Shut up and pour, Spike," Alec retorted quietly, cringing in empathetic pain as the grinding sound took on a distinctly pulpy, popping sound. Spike obeyed quickly and Alec downed the shot, exhaling hard.

Faith stepped back from the purple-faced man.

"Guess I'm not the only one that's 'damaged goods', huh, big boy?" she asked.

Placing a finger against the drunk's forehead, she pushed slightly and he fell backwards into a whimpering heap. The table applauded, even Giles who was just now removing his hand from within his jacket.

"Well done, Faith," he complimented. Faith smiled and shrugged,

"He just wasn't my type," she shrugged. Buffy shook her head and offered her hand to Faith, who slapped it.

"Nice one, Faith," she admitted.

"Girl power," Faith responded, wryly.

Spike, still looking a little more pale than usual, poured her a drink and pushed it towards her.

"Here, love, you've earned this."

Faith stared at it for a long time, before pushing it away.

"Thanks, but no thanks, I don't need it," she smiled at Buffy who nodded approvingly.

Buffy then noticed Giles frowning down at the wooden table.

"See something interesting?" Buffy asked wryly.

Giles shook his head. "I'm sorry, it's just… there's something odd carved into this table." He continued frowning as Buffy came over to peer at what had so disturbed Giles.

"Like what?" Xander asked wryly. " 'For a good time, call Spike's mother?' " He laughed as Spike whipped a bottle cap at him.

Buffy leaned over Giles' shoulder and frowned, making a face.

"What IS that?" she asked pointing at the symbol consisting of a circle of eight eyes surrounding a central eye, the entire thing enclosed in some sort of triangular pattern. Giles pursed his lips in thought.

"It's the symbol for Beth Gul-Abz," he informed them.

"Gul-Abz? I know him. Horrid creature. Awful manners, never could keep his eyes to himself," commented Anya, the name having perked her interest.

Alec frowned. "What would a demonic glyph be doing, carved into a table in a bar in the middle of New Mexico?"

Giles shook his head. "I don't know, but I think we're about to find out." Raising his eyes past Alec's shoulders, he peered at something over on the other side of the bar. Slowly, the group turned to see what had caught his attention.

Nine men entered the bar from behind a curtain. Each dressed in red robes, with the symbol of Beth Gul-Abz, emblazoned in green in full on the back. They wore black hoods and huge full-face masks made to look like a giant eye.

Giles slowly got out of his seat. "I think it's time to leave," he commented.

"Yeah, I'm getting that sense," Buffy agreed and followed the former librarian.

Carefully so as not to draw attention to themselves, all of them rose from their chairs. Suddenly, a gong sounded and the massive wooden doors closed, sealing the bar shut.

Xander blanched. "Does this mean happy hour's over?" he joked weakly. 

"I know I'm suddenly feeling pretty unhappy," Alec replied.

"Again, speak for yourself, mate," Spike retorted, "I sense impending violence."

"Do you think I would speak for you, ya prat?"

"Who are you calling a prat you-!"

"Guys!" Buffy hissed, silencing the bickering friends as the din in the room quieted down and one of the robed men stepped forth. Unlike the others, his robe was a deep purple, his mask not one eye, but eight eyes surrounding a large singular one. He lifted his mask and spoke.

"Greetings, my friends. Tonight, you are privy to a very special honor. Tonight, as the rest of the world hides behind false pretenses of generosity, their so called 'Christmas spirit', we, true men of action, revel in our own spirit." There were a few drunken cheers at this, as the man gestured for silence.

"You ask for drink, and he provides!" More cheers.

"You ask for flesh, and he provides!" He gestured to the waitresses who were now clad in silken robes as well. The crowd cheered again as Buffy felt her muscles tensing up, Alec and Spike slowly moving behind her to flank.

"And now," the robed man spoke, "we, the priests of the all-seeing lord, give you something else." He pointed to a large patch of bare floor, the _only_ patch of bare floor, Buffy realized with a start.

"We give you the honor of witnessing," he raised his hands high, "His ascendance!" 

"Oh, goody, an ascendance, that's always good!" Buffy said with a snarl, and a moment later she was proven right as, with an explosion of wood and cement, the floor erupted, spraying wooden debris across the crowd. Spike grabbed Buffy and shielded her; Alec threw his coat over Willow and Dawn, as Xander, Giles, Faith, and Anya dropped to the floor. Spike was the first to turn around and look.

"Oh, bloody hell," he muttered. Slowly, the others turned as well.

A huge orb covered in pink bulbous flesh, easily seven feet in diameter hovered over a gaping hole in the floor, eight eyes set on some sort of stalks writhed and crackled. It had no facial features save a single large pulsating eye and a gaping maw full of dagger-like teeth. It drooled and hissed as it regarded the crowd with its eight eyestalks.

The priest lowered his arms and beamed.

"And now, you, most unworthy sacrifices, may give as well… your lives," he hissed. And the creature struck.

A ray of red light erupted from its central eye, incinerating bar and bar patron alike. People screamed and fell out of their chairs, scrambling to get away from the hovering monstrosity. Spike and Xander, with a running leap, dived behind the bar, taking cover; Alec upended the table, using it for cover as Willow and Dawn huddled behind it. Giles, Faith, Anya, and Buffy huddled behind some shattered chairs as the gurgling laughter of Gul-Abz echoed through the room as it began to feed.

Anya caught Buffy's eye.

"Those eyes shoot death rays, one touch and you're killed instantly," 

Buffy nodded. "Thanks, Ahn, I noticed." She turned to Giles. "How can we fight this thing?"

The Watcher shook his head. "I haven't the faintest idea, but we'd best think of something quick!" He turned to check on Alec and the girls, relieved to see that they seemed unharmed.

The sounds of screaming and crunching bone filled the room. Alec wrapped the girls' heads tightly in his arms, burying their faces in the safely of his body and shielding them from the sight.

"Don't look," he whispered. Willow and Dawn huddled against him, both petrified by the suddenness and brutality of the attack. The young man cast a look over their barricade, and immediately ducked back down, looking ever grimmer than he had earlier.

"What's happening?" Dawn asked.

"You don't want to know," he replied quietly. There was a scream followed by a meaty crunching sound, stopping the screaming abruptly. Dawn shuddered and burrowed her head against Alec. He held them tightly and flinched as another blast from the creature sailed over their heads to incinerate part of the wall.

Alec turned suddenly, hoping that perhaps the creature had created them an escape route. His face fell as he saw that the stone wall had been scorched, but was still entirely intact. He threw a look over at his father.

"We're going to get annihilated if we stay here much longer!" he yelled.

Giles nodded. "I'm open to suggestions," he yelled back.

Anya grabbed his arm. "Challenge him!" she whispered fiercely.

"What!" Giles asked, askance.

"Challenge him! Gul-Abz is a blowhard, challenge him to a stand up fight and he'll consider a point of honor to vaporize you face-to-face." 

"Great! Who wants to be the person that gets his attention?" Faith yelled.

"I do!" Alec cried out and got up.

"Son, no! We'll take him together!" his father called out.

"Not a chance, Dad, you need a distraction and a chance to marshal your forces and I want a piece of this guy. I'm taking him now!"

"Alec!" Willow and Dawn both cried out as he made his move, suddenly Alec swooped down low and captured Willow's mouth in a fiery kiss full of passion and intensity, even as he held both girls close to him.

"Stay safe!" Alec insisted to them both when they pulled apart. Willow was breathless and stunned, Dawn looked… conflicted.

"Dusk…?' Dawn whispered.

And then he was gone; Dawn and Willow reached out for him even as he vaulted over the table and made a bee-line for Beth Gul-Abz.

"What the hell is he doing?" Buffy cried out.

"What he does," his father replied forlornly, white-faced and afraid for his son's life. Giles shook himself hard. "He's buying us some time, Buffy, make good use of it!"

"Brother or not, I'm going to kill him," Buffy growled angrily as she turned to yell across the bar at Willow. "Wills!"

Willow didn't respond; she was still staring at the spot that Alec had been, looking terrified.

"Willow!" Dawn hissed at her, tearing her eyes away from Alec's efforts to get to the demon. Willow turned to face her, looking confused.

"He's going to die…" Willow whispered in shock.

"Panic later! Right now Buffy needs you!" 

Willow whipped her head around to look at the blonde Slayer. "What are we going to do?" she cried out.

"You still got that trick with the watch Wills?" Buffy asked.

"Yes! Yes I do!" Willow's face lit up.

"Good, get it ready, we're going to need it!"

Willow nodded and turned to Dawn. "Okay, Dawnie, you need to stay down during all this, but we're going to go kick some demon-ass," she instructed her.

"What about Dusk?" Dawn asked fervently.

"Don't you worry, Dawnie, he's going to be okay - nobody messes with my boyfriend."

"Yeah…," Dawn muttered to herself, turning away from Willow, who had begun to prepare a spell, "…all yours."

Alec weaved his way towards the demon, using debris and corpses as cover as he serpentined his way towards his target. A machete-wielding cultist attacked him suddenly, and Alec responded with a roundhouse punch that broke the man's jaw and sent him spiraling to the floor. Alec caught the discarded weapon from mid-air and tumbled the last few feet towards the demon. One of the creature's eyestalks rotated to regard him and Alec sliced the eyestalk clean off.

The demon roared in rage and rotated to face Alec.

"Who dares!" it demanded.

"I do, you git!" Alec responded and drove the blade deep into the side of the creature. It screamed in pain and fury and, with a crimson burst: shot Alec with one of its death rays.

"ALEC!" Buffy cried out.

Dawn shot her head up to look, terror-stricken, as Giles reached into his jacket and removed what appeared to be a monstrously huge revolver and took aim.

Miraculously, Alec was not slain; instead he stood his ground, holding both hands out in front of him to block the beam. The skin on his palms began to blacken and blister as Alec's eyes filled to pools of darkness. Beth Gul-Abz turned a second eyebeam, a third, and a forth, focusing them on the young man who gritted and took it, even as he was slowly being pushed backwards by the onslaught. 

"Son…" Giles whispered, aghast at the sight as the flesh began to burn and crisp off his son's arms. He could feel the heat of the creature's burning rays from where he was and he was pretty far away. Alec was in the center of an inferno.

Alec gritted his teeth, he could feel that his eyebrows had burned away and his hair was beginning to curl and smoke, the flesh on his face was beginning to blister from the attack.

"Why am I always getting set on fire?" Alec rasped to himself as the creature added a fifth ray to the attack, driving him to his knees.

"Burn," Beth Gul-Abz burbled. "Die."

_Just got to buy them a little more time_ Alec thought to himself, the pain of it all making it very difficult to think clearly. 

A pair of deafening gunshots rang out - so close together they sounded like a single shot - and two of Beth Abz's eyestalks exploded in a shower of muck. Two beams went out and Alec was able to catch his breath as the others stopped long enough for Beth Abz to regard this new threat.

"Beth Gul-Abz, you are hereby challenged to open combat," Giles declared simply as he took aim for a third shot, his gun still smoking. " Do you accept or do you yield?" 

Alec flashed him a look somewhere between disbelief and '_are you out of your friggin' mind_?'.

There was a long silence.

"Your challenge is accepted," Gul-Abz burbled.

Giles cautiously stood up and surveyed the damage. Bloodstains, piles of ash and other signs of destruction pervaded the scene. The demon hovered, drooling, its multitude of remaining eyes focused on him with uncomfortable intensity, its gaping maw smeared with blood, the stumps of its severed eye stalks and the machete wound in its side leaking foul-smelling ichor. 

"State your terms," Gul-Abz demanded in a gurgling voice.

Giles swallowed. "Myself and my compatriots versus you and your followers." He gestured to the priests and waitresses, and, shooting a look at Alec, added, "And the return of my son."

_Oh, Dad, no….!_ Alec thought to himself, knowing instantly what was about to happen. The creature rotated one of its eyes again and took aim.

"NO!" Giles roared as the creature fired upon his son, kneeling on the ground, too weakened to get out of the away. The blast sent Alec flying backwards through the air to crash into the wall, hard. Debris broke free from the impact and came tumbling down, burying the boy from sight.

"Come and die," Beth Gul-Abz said, laughing.

"You are going to suffer for that," Giles promised whisper soft.

"Yeah, yeah he is," Buffy assented as she got up and looked around - they were outnumbered three-to-one by cultists, which consisted of all the robed men, the waitresses, and everyone else who hadn't already been slaughtered.

"All right. Let's do this," Buffy addressed the demon. The creature's lipless mouth pulled back into something resembling a grin and Buffy turned her head slightly over her shoulder. 

"Spike?" she asked quietly

And without warning, Spike leapt up from the bar, baseball bat in one hand and a bottle of booze in the other. Gul-Abz focused on him in surprise.

"Batters up!" Spike roared, his face changing in his fury over Alec. He tossed the bottle into the air, it went up, then came down, and with a grunt; Spike swung the bat, hitting the bottom of the bottle sending it propelling towards the creature. The creature's eyes widened in surprise as the bottle sped towards it. Buffy dove out of the way.

"He shoots!" Spike yelled… and with a war whoop, Xander popped out from behind the bar, wielding a pump-action shotgun. He took aim and fired. The bottle exploded and ignited, becoming a flaming missile. The creature roared as the fiery projectile took it dead center in its huge central eye, imbedding deeply into the soft tissue, still burning. The creature screamed in pain as it thrashed wildly, attempting to dislodge the burning rocket.

"…He scores!" Xander replied, yelling triumphantly. He slapped Spike a high-five as the other reached for another bottle.

The priests recovered from their surprise and attacked. Giles, Faith, and Buffy rushed to meet them. Faith snapped a kick out catching a third behind the head. Giles punched out a forth and Buffy a fifth. Spike came up from behind the bar with another bottle as Xander cocked the gun.

"Pull!" Xander cried. With a grunt Spike hurled the bottle high into the air. Giles saw it and instantly understood their intentions.

"Down!" he yelled. Buffy and Faith disengaged from their fights and leapt away. Giles did the same. The remaining priests and waitresses stopped what they were doing to gaze uncomprehending at the bottle that arced high over their heads. Xander took aim and fired, the bottle exploded, showering them with glass and fire. They screamed and a flaming priest ran from them, flailing madly. 

Faith grinned as Giles got up, and, without warning, received a kick from an enraged, badly scorched waitress. The Watcher fell to the ground and she raised a boot to stab at him with her heels… but Buffy plowed hard into her, slamming her into the wall with a crunch. The woman fell to the ground unconscious. Buffy stopped to help her father figure to his feet.

"What's a matter? Can't hit a woman?" she wisecracked. Giles smiled grimy and lashed out past Buffy's shoulder to smash a woman's face with his gun, knocking her backwards and causing her to drop the switchblade she had planned on sliding into the Slayer's ribs. 

"Wherever did you get that idea?" Giles asked, shrugging. 

A loud roar interrupted them. They turned to see that Gul-Abz had finally dislodged the burning glass shards from his eye and was regarding them with murderous intent. 

"Can you keep the cultists busy?" Buffy asked Giles. After receiving a nod, she turned and called out to the other Slayer.

"Faith! Weapon!" She looked around to find the girl busy beating a priest to a pulp. The priest reached out and grabbed for a knife on the floor. Faith's face twisted into a feral snarl as she pulled back a flattened palm, ready to drive it into his throat with killing force. Buffy froze as she watched her wrestle with her homicidal tendencies, the scarred Slayer hesitated as horror dawned onto her face at her near loss in control, and then, with another snarl, she yanked the man's head up and smashed her forehead into his brow, sending him tumbling into unconsciousness. 

Buffy sighed in relief and called out the other woman's name again. Faith shook her head, clearing it, then whipped her head around to regard Buffy, nodded curtly and snatched up a pool cue.

"Catch!" she called out tossing her the stick, Buffy caught it and snapped it in two jagged pieces over her knee; lashing out with one half of the cue, she caught a priest against the face, sending him spinning to the ground. Parrying a few blows from another cultist Buffy caved his face in with a backhand and sent him to join his comrade on the ruined and bloody wood floor.

"Willow, NOW!" she yelled. 

Willow heard her call and, closing her eyes, took some dirt from the floor and sprinkled it over her watch.

"Goddess Hecate, hear my plea! Bestow upon Buffy time's greatest speed! Temporis Celeritus!" She finished the spell and looked at her Kermit the Frog watch. 

Dawn eyed her uncertainly, then her eyes widened in amazement as the hands on her watch began to move forward, first slowly, then faster and faster. 

Buffy began to glow with a green light. She grinned at the witch, and with a blur of motion, attacked, her movements too fast to follow. She made a beeline for the snarling creature whose eyes widened in shock at the human blur. It snapped at her futilely as Buffy blurred and, suddenly, somersaulted beneath the creature, where she crisscrossed her arms and, with a grunt, plunged the makeshift weapons into the creature's soft underbelly. It wailed in pain and thrashed from side to side, it's jaws snapping.

Buffy roared back. "That's for my brother, you son-of-a-bitch!" She stabbed and tore at the creature, opening huge ragged wounds; gouts of blood erupted out from the beast's body, nearly drowning the murderous Slayer, who continued to stab and snarl heedlessly.

Unexpectedly, with a complimenting explosion of debris, a charred fist smashed its way up from under the wreckage at Buffy's back. The blond Slayer gasped in shock, snapped off the pool cues in Beth Abz's body and rolling out from under him to crouch next to the rubble, grabbing at the hand.

"Alec!" she cried out, pulling hard at the charred hand. 

Beth Gul-Abz pulled himself together and took aim at Buffy, who was finally standing still long enough for him to get a shot in, when a large chunk of his body just exploded. He screamed and whirled around to face this new attack.

"You. Will. Not. Hurt. My. Children!" Giles yelled, firing round after round into the beast after each word, blasting huge gooey chunks out of it.

The demon aimed one of his eyes at the Watcher.

"DAD!" Alec cried out as he was dragged, charred and mutilated, out from the wreckage by his sister. Desperately, he lashed out with a tendril of darkness and the eyestalk that had been targeting his father fell to the floor, neatly severed.

"Run interference, sis!" Alec cried out as he charged out into the fray.

Buffy gaped as she watched Alec change from a scorched ruin of a human being with a gaping wound in his chest, to being perfectly healed in a short span of steps.

"How-?" she began to ask but an attacking cultist interrupted her and she resigned herself to pummeling now and asking questions later.

"Hey, prat! We're not done, yet!" Alec called out, lashing out with another shadow tendril that eagerly consumed the creature's flesh where it struck, dissolving it into nothingness. 

Beth Gul-Abz wailed in agony and Alec readied himself for the kill shot when, suddenly, the high priest leapt up from behind a shattered jukebox and plunged a wickedly curved knife deep into Alec's shoulder.

"Alec!" Dawn shrieked, having come up from behind the table and doing her best to see what was going on in the dimly lit bar. She hadn't seen Alec use his shadow powers, but saw him get stabbed, and the sight of it had her ready to leap over the table and begin killing these people that had hurt him and her family.

"Dawnie, no!" Willow cried out, holding her back.

Alec whirled on the priest, a hand grabbing the one holding the knife, keeping it there rather than pulling away, the other hand grabbed the priest's shoulder.

"Ready to become a martyr?" Alec asked the man, grinning evilly. The priest had a brief chance to look afraid, before Alec used the knife in his body, and his grip on the other man as leverage as Alec pivoted and propelled the man past him, slamming a hand across the back of the priest's head to send him stumbling right into the snarling and snapping demon. 

The priest cried out once as the drooling jaws whipped around to face him, and lunged. There was a splash of blood and Dawn paled, sinking back behind the barricade, her hand over her mouth. 

Alec grunted and fingered the wound in his shoulder, which had gone icy numb, before lashing out with a fist, catching another priest across the face. Buffy rushed over to help him, gently easing him back behind some chairs, the spell had begun to wear off and she was startling to feel drained. 

On the other side of the bar, the creature continued to thrash and wail, but its strength was rapidly draining. Faith brought her foot up under another pool cue, and propelled it to Buffy. She caught it and took aim.

"Hey, Blinky!" Buffy yelled. The creature snarled and turned to her, trying to regard her with its scorched, ruined central eye. 

Buffy hefted the pool cue. "Watch this!" And with a grunt, she hurled the makeshift spear straight at the creature. It had time to shriek once before the pool cue buried itself all the way into its already severely damaged central eye, skewering it; the beast roared in rage and began spinning in circles. Buffy cocked a grin and turned back to Faith and Giles, her eyes widening as she realized that the priests had regrouped and were quickly cornering the two.

Buffy took three steps towards them… when the huge wooden doors of the bar imploded in a shower of splinters as the R.V. came ramming through the bar. She caught a quick glance of Angel behind the wheel; he cut the wheel sharply and gunned the engine, bearing down on the injured demon. It turned its remaining eyes to regard the headlights of the huge R.V. in shock before the massive vehicle rammed into it, driving it with punishing force across the bar. The demon screeched one last time before Angel hit the brakes and sent the creature flying through the air to slam into the stone wall, where it exploded on impact, oozing a trail of ichor as its shattered body slid down the wall, before coming to rest upon the floor, looking no more impressive than a deflated kickball. 

Angel leapt out of the driver's side door, game face in place. He moved hurriedly to Buffy.

"How's my timing?" he queried.

"Perfect," she replied, offered him a weary grin before turning to the other priests.

Faith and Giles had used the distraction well; they had regrouped and were currently mounting a punishing counterattack. Half a minute later, it was all over. The cultists laid in various stages of hurt along the bar room floor. 

Buffy looked around. "How are we doing?" she asked wearily. Willow, Dawn, and Anya peeked up from their hiding places.

"We're okay," Willow called out a little shakily. Spike and Xander stood up from behind the bar, Spike's face reverting back to normal.

"That was FUN!" The vampire whooped, grinning happily. Xander gave him a sideways glance.

"You're a real sick guy, you know that right?" the young man stated. Spike grinned and nodded vehemently.

"Uh-huh" he responded, chuckling, as he threw his fist into the air. "We came! We saw! We kicked their bloody arses!" he cried triumphantly.

Buffy smiled and shook her head affectionately, then her eyes widened as she saw Alec struggling to his feet.

"Alec," she whispered, rushing over to help him stand. He waved her away.

"I'm all right. Just feel like Dead Man Walking," he smiled wryly. Willow and Dawn rushed over to him, hugging him tightly. He exhaled hard and rested against the girls, stroking their respective hair gently. For a moment, there was a perfect bliss within him, and he felt at peace.

Suddenly Dawn pulled away, horrified.

"You're bleeding!" she cried out. Willow pulled away and gasped at the stream of blood oozing out of Alec's shoulder. He looked down and shrugged, unconcerned, reaching up and, with a twist, snapped the handle off the knife and began digging around his shoulder for the blade.

"Damn thing's fouled on the joint; it's all bent up, gonna have to dig the sodding thing out by hand," Alec grunted and winced as he worked at the wound.

"Balls of British Steel, mate, that's you," Spike complimented him with a grin.

"It's just a scratch." The younger Giles laughed, then winced as the icy numbness was replaced with a fiery agony.

"Or… not," he finished weakly, smiling before sagging to a heap on the ground and into darkness, chased by the panicked cries of his friends.


	19. Chapter 17 The Guardian of Grigori

Alec slowly opened his eyes, to view Dawn eyeing him intently, her eyes widened in relief

Alec slowly opened his eyes, to view Dawn eyeing him intently, her eyes widened in relief.

"Alec," she breathed before lunging at him, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing tightly. He reached up to stroke her hair tenderly.

"Hey, petite," he whispered with a smile.

The girl held him for a while, before pulling away and wiping her tears.

"I was really wigged," she stated plainly.

"I can see that, yes," Alec answered mildly, offering a weak smile.

She smiled back, then turned and yelled, "Willow! He's awake!"

There was a bustling as Willow came over and almost bowled over Dawn, to dive onto the bed doting kisses all over Alec's face. He grinned wryly.

"Gee, I should get slashed more often."

"Don't you dare," Willow warned direly through kisses. He smiled and rested with her against him, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist. He looked around, confused; first at the fact that he was on a bed, second that he was nude from his waist up, his shoulder bandaged, and third that the bed seemed to be vibrating slightly. He sat up a little, propping his head up with a pillow.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Just entered New York," Buffy informed him, having come over, and placed a cup of coffee in his hands. Alec frowned, sipping from the mug.

"New York? Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't we just leave New Mexico?"

Buffy shook her head.

"You are hereby corrected, oh sibling, on the grounds that you've been unconscious for the better part of a week. You lost a lot of blood."

Alec's eyes widened.

"Come again?" he replied, stunned. Buffy nodded.

"That knife that weird priest had was laced with something nasty." The Slayer jerked a head towards Willow. "Say 'thank you' to the nice witch who managed to come up with an antidote, or else you'd be pushing up daisies." Her smile belied the fact that she had been terrified of the close call.

Alec smiled and took his sister's hand, giving it a long squeeze.

"No worries, sis. I'm still here."

Buffy nodded before dabbing suspiciously at her eyes, she then laughed a little, embarrassed.

"Allergies, you know how they are," she explained weakly.

Alec lay back against the bed, smiling. "Yeah, I know how they can get," he smiled softly.

Buffy sniffled and turned to Giles, who had come to the back to see his son.

"Hi, Dad," Alec rasped, smiling up at him.

Giles took off his glasses and cleaned his them before regarding his son affectionately. "How are you feeling, Alec?"

Alec snorted and gave his father a lopsided grin. "Didn't you ask me this question once already this week after an incident involving some parasites?" he quipped lightly.

Giles laughed, more to release tension than at any actual humor as, gingerly, Alec pried off the bandages, and smiled sardonically at the newly healed skin.

Buffy gestured. "Yeah, your dad explained it. Turns out when Willow cast that healing spell on you the other night it left trace… something…"

"Trace energies," Giles supplied helpfully.

"Right, 'trace energies' that sort of kicked in when Willow cast that other spell, the time spell. It was supposed to hit me, but it must have gotten you as well." She frowned for a moment. "Unfortunately, you were poisoned and that took some fixing before any other magic would work on you, since Willow's healing spell had been to patch you up, not clean you."

"Ah, is that what happened?" Alec asked, shifting a glace to his father and giving him a long, level look.

"That's what I told everyone, yes," his father responded neutrally.

Alec smirked, but said nothing; he'd known his father could be a convincing liar at times but this was some of his best work.

Buffy continued on blithely. "For a while there, you had us all worried."

Giles nodded and addressed his son, who was busy stripping the gauze pads off.

"That's right, son, an advanced healing factor does not render you invulnerable. You must be more careful. This is the second time you've received grievous wounds in as many days."

Alec looked up from his work to regard his father, his expression softening a tad.

"This coming from the man who holds the undisputed record for the most times rendered unconscious?" he quipped.

Buffy laughed as she headed up to the front of the bus to spread the news of Alec's recovery. Giles smiled, a little embarrassed.

"Yes, well, be that as it may." He reached out to grip his son's hand hard. "Be more careful, please, son," he asked, his voice a tad more hoarse than normal.

Alec wrapped his fingers around his father's hand, giving it a tight squeeze. "Not a problem, Dad. You can't keep a Giles down." He grinned as the tension drained from his father's face.

"Hear, hear," Willow put in sleepily as she nuzzled against her lover's chest. He smiled and kissed her head.

Dawn looked uncomfortable and stood to go, Alec caught her arm gently. She stopped and turned to look down at him, surprised.

"Thanks, petite. For taking care of Willow back there," he whispered.

Dawn colored and took his hand in her's, holding it tightly.

"You're welcome, Dusk," she replied softly.

Alec shook his head.

"You can call me 'Alec' Dawn, I think we're close enough for that," he smiled at her as Dawn beamed.

"Alec…" she said experimentally, before biting her lip in pleasure, nodding, then hurriedly dropping his hand and walking up to the front of the bus. Her reaction made Alec chuckle.

"I think you just made her day," Willow murmured.

Her boyfriend smiled and kissed her red hair.

"You think?" he asked.

Willow snorted gently.

"Only a man would be so oblivious as to think that that girl does not seriously carry a torch for you. I speak from experience," she whispered wryly.

"You've got nothing to be worried about," he reassured her, and held on tightly.

Willow smiled and squeezed him.

"I'm not," she responded quietly.

Alec sighed and rested his head against her's, beginning to lazily drift back off into sleep.

Just then Spike wandered over, dropping a battered old Discman next to Alec's head causing his's eyes to shoot open in confusion, then sardonic recognition.

"Here you are, mate, present for the stupid/brave," Spike smacked him lightly upside on the head. "Stop being heroic, you're stealing my spotlight."

Alec snorted and coughed quietly.

"Come on, Spike, you don't need _my_ help to look like a schmuck, you do that so well on your own."

The vampire chortled and lit a cigarette.

"Enjoy the CD, one of my own mixes." He stopped and looked at his friend. "Nice moves back there."

Alec slapped the other man's outstretched hand.

"You too, man." Alec pulled on the cheap wire headphones and hit play. Then he chuckled.

" 'Momma, I'm coming home'. Sentimental slob." Alec settled back into the cushions and took a deep breath of Willow's hair, letting that and the crooning of Ozzy to put him to sleep.

A few hours later, the gang had pulled into a rest stop just outside of New York City. It was almost sunrise and the sky was beginning to pale. Buffy got up from her seat and rubbed her knuckles into her eyes. Spike was already on their bed, head thrown back, quietly snoring. She smiled and continued to rub her eyes. As they cleared, she spied Angel getting ready for bed, dressed in leather pants, he'd stripped his t-shirt off, and she could clearly see his tattoo as his back was to her. The dark-haired vampire lifted his head and turned suddenly, smiling slightly.

"Hey," he greeted softly.

"Hey," Buffy whispered. There was an uncomfortable silence as neither could think of anything to say.

"You really did well at that bar," she spoke up. "I mean, with the whole ramming bit."

Angel shrugged. "I figured when I heard screaming that things had turned ugly," he replied simply.

Buffy smiled a little.

"Trust us to pick the one bar that hosts a demonic cult," she said sardonically.

Angel regarded her with wry amusement.

"Trust you to pick now _two_ parties that were hosted by demonic cults. Or have you forgotten your first frat party?" he inquired softly.

Buffy smiled and chuckled a little.

"Thank Cordelia for that one, it was her idea." She looked up at him. "Besides, I would have never gone if you would have given me the time of day back in those days," she added.

Angel smiled as his mind went back to those idyllic months before his tragic transformation.

"I could never say no to you for anything," he replied, a touch of humor in his voice.

Buffy smiled then blushed, looking down at her feet as memories and a surge of long buried feelings coursed through her. She looked up at him, noticing that his expression mirrored hers.

"Angel, I'm with Spike right now," she explained softly.

"I know," he replied, nodding, his face sliding back into that mask of stoicism she was now so familiar with.

The Angel who had saved her life from Tarakan assassins, the Angel that had hoisted a ladder to her bedroom window when she was grounded - he was gone; Acathla and his torments, their fights over Faith, and just plain separation and mistrust had banished him. The bitter man before her was almost completely alien to her. Buffy sighed.

"Okay," she replied quietly. She turned to go as Angel turned away from her to continue turning down his bed. She took a few steps from him, before turning suddenly.

"Angel?" she asked.

He turned abruptly, gazing silently at her with those dark eyes of his.

"Do you… ever miss… us?" she asked hesitantly. She looked down, not daring to look into his eyes.

For an instant, Angel's expression softened, he started to reach out to her, but then stopped, his hand clenched into a tight fist as he dropped his arm.

"Every day."

Buffy shot her head up, eyes like glistening pools she reached out to him.

"Angel…?" she whispered softly.

He turned abruptly away from her.

"Go to bed, Buffy," he replied curtly.

Buffy's hand trembled as she dropped it, turning away from him and fleeing to her and Spike's bed on the other side of the R.V.

Angel sighed and turned back to look at her retreating form, an expression of deep regret etched onto his face.

Spike watched them both through half-closed eyes, still mock-snoring softly. His hands clenched into fists and he rolled over to his side, facing the wall. He felt Buffy enter their bed and gently press her back to his, curled up into a ball, shuddering slightly in that way that women do when they are weeping and wish no one to know. Spike squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself to ignore it as he seethed silently.

A few hours later, Alec awoke and peered about confused - the interior of the coach was dark, but not as dark as it should've been given Spike's sunproofing. He sighed and shifted slightly, gently laying Willow down beside him. She mumbled a little and rolled over onto her side, away from him. He sat up gently and peered around the bus and, with a start, he realized that Dawn's bedroll was empty. He scanned the interior of the bus and sighed with palpable relief as he spied her sitting at the back corner of the bus. She'd pried back a portion of tinfoil covering the window and was gazing out at the sun-drenched landscape. Carefully getting out of bed, Alec padded silently over to her, massaging a sore neck. Dawn turned her head abruptly and spied him coming towards her. She smiled at him.

"Couldn't sleep?" she inquired.

Alec shook his head.

"Restless, I suppose," he replied, sitting down behind her to look out the window.

"Looks like a whole other world, in the daylight, doesn't it?" he commented quietly, gesturing outside.

Dawn smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, it's so pretty." She turned to regard him. "I was really scared… When you got hurt. I was afraid you were…" Her words trailed off as she hung her head.

"Hey," Alec whispered softly, pulling her to him. She rested her head against the warm skin of his chest, her fingers curling around the skin of his pectoral muscles. He stroked her hair soothingly.

"I'll always be here to watch over you," he assured her. Dawn looked up from his chest,

"You promise?" she asked, her eyes watery. Alec smiled and kissed her forehead.

"Yeah, I promise," he replied. She smiled slightly and rested her cheek against his skin. Closing her eyes, she drifted off to sleep, his resonant heartbeat echoing.

Willow woke up abruptly. She turned her head, noticing that Alec was no longer with her. She sat up and looked around before spying Alec, his back to the window, with Dawn curled up asleep on his lap, her head resting against his bare chest. He caught her eye and put a finger to his lips.

"Shhh," he whispered gently.

Smiling, Willow picked up a spare blanket and, tiptoeing quietly over, draped it over the pair. Alec smiled gratefully as he covered Dawn and himself with the blanket. Willow leaned over to kiss him gently, before padding over to their bed. As she lay there, she pondered. She could be jealous, she supposed, but there was something about the two of them together, it was pure and with no ulterior motives other than one taking care and offering comfort to the other. She smiled slightly and closed her eyes. Alec was a great guy, and he never made her feel unloved for one moment since they'd met. And Dawn was a sweetheart.

_Besides, we all need someone to love. Dawn could do a lot worse for a love interest than Alec. I know I could,_ she thought to herself. Oz had left her, Tara had been… Willow frowned unhappily, she didn't like thinking about what had happened to Tara.

_Tara had been… lost,_ she decided firmly. _But I'll never lose Alec._

She smiled again and drifted back off to sleep.

"So, how do we find this Grigori Estate?" Xander asked as he banked the vehicle to the left to avoid a speeding car. It was just after sundown and they were back on the road on their way to Crown Point, debating their next move.

Buffy shook her head and turned to Willow.

"There's absolutely NO more information about this place on the 'Net?" she asked her.

Willow shook her head.

"Nothing official," she replied, "no records, no press releases, nothing." She shook her head once more, this time in disbelief. "It's like hunting for Amelia Earhart," she commented dryly.

Alec frowned.

"You said there was no official word. What about unofficial?" he asked. Willow frowned, puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

Alec struggled to put his thoughts into words.

"Like a rumor mill or some kind of grapevine."

"Or a chat room," Anya suggested.

Xander laughed. "Since when do you dabble in chat rooms, Ahn?"

"Well, sometimes when we have a lot of sex, you fall asleep and I can't get you to have more sex with me, so I go on the computer, and once I make past all the pornography you have–… which reminds me, what is your fascination with two women and a-"

"So!" Xander interrupted. "End of the world! Crazy asylum place! Let's go already!"

Everyone was stifling laughs, except Willow, who was frowning at the computer screen and not paying a bit of attention.

"I hadn't thought of chat rooms," she exclaimed. "But there's got to be millions of chat rooms on the 'Net. How can I find the right one?" she asked.

Giles cleared his throat.

"Does the state of New York have an official web page?" he asked.

Willow nodded.

"Sure. For tourists, it has information, maps…" Her voice trailed off as her eyes widened, she looked up at Giles, "…and an online chat room for visitors!" the red-head finished triumphantly. Her fingers began hitting the keys on her laptop in furious succession.

Buffy spared Giles an appreciative glance.

"Way to get in touch with your 21st century self, Giles," she complimented.

Giles colored and smiled awkwardly.

"Yes, well, blame my son. He's been insisting that I learn that infernal machine."

Alec chuckled. "I promised Jenny I'd finished what she started with you - we're going to drag you into the modern era kicking and screaming, Dad." He grinned as Giles snorted.

"That's an understatement," commented the older man quietly.

Alec laughed and turned to regard the screen, stopping to peer over it at the dozing Dawn. He smiled slightly at that, he'd been wondering why she was so quiet. He chuckled and turned his attention back to the screen. He pointed to something on the screen.

"Okay, there's the chat room index, type in 'Grigori Estate' and see how many hits you get."

Willow smiled demurely up at him.

"Honey? Do you want to drive?" she asked him wryly. He grinned and kissed the top of her head apologetically. The screen flickered back a response, Willow's eyes widened.

"Whoa," she breathed, scanning the list of rooms that stretched out endlessly down the screen. "Two hundred and eighteen hits," she shook her head in disbelief.

"Popular place," Spike commented dryly.

Alec pointed at the screen. "Look here under subject listing," he began to read aloud, "Urban Legends. Fantastic stories. Occult. Unexplained phenomena." He exhaled hard.

"Anyone notice a trend?" Faith asked wryly.

"Seriously, try '' ," Xander joked.

"I miss that show," Faith replied turning to him.

"Yeah, FOX has a tendency to cancel good TV shows, remember that "cowboys in space" show I was telling about with the catchy theme song?"

"Guys, focus!" Buffy insisted. The two dark haired couch potatoes looked contrite enough as they continued their conversation quietly. Buffy rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the computer screen.

"Wills, can you get into one of those chat rooms?" she asked.

"No problem."

Willow nodded, hitting a few more keys. The screen dissolved into a chat module. She looked up.

"I'll ask what the story is with this place," she informed them, hitting a few more keys. There was a silence as Willow read the flowing dialogue, then her eyes widened.

"Well, this is interesting," she swallowed.

Buffy frowned and leaned over her.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Grigori Estate, as it turns out, is a lunatic asylum," she replied.

There was a stunned silence.

"The first piece of saving the world is in a bloody NUTHOUSE?" Spike demanded incredulously.

Willow nodded. "Not just your average nuthouse, either." She read the screen. " 'Grigori Estate is a maximum-security mental facility for the supernatural'," she read from the screen.

Giles' eyes widened.

"It's an insane asylum for vampires?" he asked, stunned.

Willow nodded.

"Vampires, werewolves, demons, warlocks, anything else that's not covered in a standard HMO. Looks to be a collection of the most dangerous and full-born loony creatures under one roof," she continued reading the screen.

"Well, this is going to be fun," Alec commented dryly. He turned to Buffy. "What do you think Dracula was thinking when he suggested that the Everstone was here?" he asked, still thrown by this new information.

Buffy shook her head.

"Not a clue, bro. Why would someone hide a magical artifact smack dab in the middle of a demonic loony bin?" she asked.

"Be the last place anyone would look," Angel commented quietly, "or would want to for that matter."

Spike shook his head.

"Look, how do we know ol' tall, dark and Romanian is playing us all for a bunch of saps: sending us to Carfax bloody Abbey?" he asked.

Buffy shook her head.

"We don't, we can only-"

Willow interrupted. "Uh guys? Remember when I mentioned that 'multiple homicides' incident at the estate?" she gestured to the screen. "Well, I just got clued in as to what happened."

Faith leaned in to look at the screen.

"Whoa!" she swore softly, reading the screen. "Says here some guy named Sasha Benedict got loose and killed a bunch of people," she whistled softly.

"How many people?" Buffy asked her voice laced with dread.

"Like, all of them." Willow responded. "Thirty patients and the entire staff. Cops found him, just sitting in the library reading a book when they broke the door down," she finished.

Faith shook her head in awe. "Paging Doctor Lector: your order of fava beans and Chianti is ready."

"Yeah, no kidding," Alec replied. He turned to Willow. "Can you dig up any info about this Benedict guy?" he asked her.

Willow frowned and hit a few more keys. The screen coughed up the results and she whistled.

"Looks like just one hit as far as information goes. A medical journal, some sort of psychiatric article on serial killers." She began to read. "Dr Sasha Benedict, degrees in criminal psychology and forensic medicine. List of commendations a mile long, did a lot of work for the N.Y.P.D. as a case and forensics profiler. " She looked up. "He'd look at crime scenes and try to put together what happened."

Buffy shook her head.

"Was he any good at it?" she asked.

Willow nodded. "Apparently he was one of their best and brightest. He was nicknamed 'The Oracle' because his profiles were so accurate. People claimed he could see the crimes as they were being committed."

"Speaking of committed, how did our boy here wind up in the funny farm?" Buffy asked.

Willow frowned at the screen.

"Well, apparently his predictions got so accurate that Internal Affairs began scoping him out." She made a face and continued. "They found him with an eviscerated man, claimed he was consulting the entrails for divinational purposes. They searched an address he gave them and found almost twenty more corpses, all of them eviscerated," she finished with a shudder.

Faith held up a hand.

"Hold up. You mean Nut Boy, here, ripped out people's guts because he thought he could see the future?"

Giles nodded.

"It makes sense, there are some fortunetellers that claim they can foretell the future by studying the innards of a hen." He frowned. "I've never heard of it being preformed on a human being though."

Willow spoke up.

"It gets worse. Because this guy was so knowledgeable of human anatomy, the people were kept alive while he was consulting their innards." She made a face. "He claimed that keeping them alive improved the accuracy of the reading."

Buffy shuddered.

"Well, I guess we know how he got to be so good at catching crooks," she exhaled hard. "So he gets thrown in this nuthouse, then what?" she inquired.

Willow shook her head.

"Then nothing. The guy's police record is erased, his birth certificate, social security number, even his library cards if he had them - all of them deleted. On paper, this guy never existed until six years ago, when he killed everybody."

Alec lifted his head from the screen and asked dryly.

"Anybody want to make a wager regarding whether or not this charming individual is the one we have to talk to regarding the Everstone?"

"No bet," Buffy replied softly, she turned back to Willow. "You get an address, yet, Wills?"

Willow nodded.

"It's a little sketchy, but from what everyone's telling me, this place is a fortress. It would be hard to miss it," she replied.

Buffy nodded.

"Now all we need to do is figure out how to get in and get an interview with loony tunes."

Spike snorted. "Yeah, well, I suppose we could tell them that you're the Slayer sent here for information to save the world," he commented sarcastically.

"Hi, I'm Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I need to talk with Dr. Benedict." Buffy smiled and put up a hand to block the glaring halogen beam the guard's flashlight was shining in her face. In his other hand, he was brandishing an assault rifle.

"It's to save the world," Willow put in.

Spike groaned and sank his head into his hands. Alec gave him a wry look.

"You did suggest it, Spike," he commented. Spike muttered an obscenity as he continued to shake his head in disbelief.

The guard turned his head slightly, and spoke into a walkie-talkie mounted on his shoulder. Buffy turned from hanging out of the driver side window, to look at Giles. He shrugged fractionally and waited to hear the outcome. The guard finished talking and gestured to the car with his rifle.

"The vehicle will have to stay off the estate grounds and only two of you may leave the vehicle at any time. Failure to comply will result in immediate corrective actions. We are licensed to use lethal force," the guard warned ominously.

Buffy flashed a cheerful smile at him as she got out of the R.V.

"Oh, don't worry, we're the good guys," she reassured him.

Giles rolled his eyes.

"That's right, Buffy, utilize your irrefutable logic on the nice man with the automatic weapon. Well done," he admonished sardonically.

She shot him a nasty look before sending another dazzling smile to the guard, who, stone-faced, demanded identification. She and Giles both produced their driver's licenses, which the guard scrutinized for a long time, making another call on his radio. The call came back and the guard gestured to the gatehouse. The massive metal gate began to slowly roll back ponderously.

"They do take their security seriously don't they?" Buffy whistled.

Giles made an affirming sound in his throat as two guards, marching in time, headed up to them and flanked them, indicating that they were to come with them… or else. Giles and Buffy allowed themselves to be led away.

"Remind me once again that this place is owned and operated by good guys?" Buffy leaned over and whispered to Giles. The Watcher had seen a lot during his tenure on the Hellmouth, but even he had to admit the structure before them was impressive to say the least.

Great stone walls surrounded the building, laced with barbed wire and watchtowers every fifty meters. The wall was made of polished black marble, which did not reflect any light shone on it. Men with guns were everywhere, talking on radios and keeping very alert. But all that paled in comparison to the building itself.

Built to resemble a fortress, the asylum looked like it had been designed by a manic depressive architect, to serve as a bomb shelter for the end of the world. It loomed like a great bird of prey, a jagged wound against the velvety black of the night sky which seemed almost warm by comparison.

Buffy suppressed a shudder as she approached yet another set of steel gates.

"I'm starting to understand why this place is an insane asylum. You'd have to be severely bent to handle this place," she gestured to a series of hideous gargoyles. Giles nodded mutely as a pair of massive stone doors were pushed open, admitting them into the asylum.

If the exterior had been an example of gothic horror, the interior was a dedicated study in elegance. White marble floors gleamed, stone pillars rose high into the heights of the building. Buffy craned her neck to discover where the pillars terminated and was shocked to discover that they didn't, they stretched on past her line of sight. Buffy shuddered slightly; there was no way that the interior of the building could be this vast, given what she had seen of the exterior. She turned a disbelieving look to Giles, who was gaping up at a gargantuan stained glass window on the ceiling.

"When did we get to Hogwarts?" she asked in bewilderment. "This place is way too big, it can't be right."

Giles nodded. "It would seem that the architects were either geniuses, madmen, or very skilled with spatial distortion magic."

"A little of all three actually," a woman's voice called from their right.

They whirled around and gaped at a huge black marble lion striding past them, it reared back onto its haunches and roared at them. Buffy jumped back as Giles stepped in front of her protectively.

"Now, Onyx, cut it out!" the same voice called out. Giles and Buffy looked up to see a remarkably elegant woman stepping out of the shadows. Dressed in a frilly blouse and dress, and with a mane of lustrous silver hair cascading past her feet to pool on the floor, she resembled nothing so much as Glinda the Good Witch gone modern. Smiling, she stepped forth to stroke the lion's marble head; it turned into her caress and purred deeply. She smiled down at it before greeting her guests.

"Hello. My name is Marlena. I'm the guardian here at Grigori Estate and, as your host, I bid you welcome." She bowed and smiled warmly at the pair, setting their minds at ease. There was something familiar about her, Buffy thought, something that made her instantly trust and like the older woman.

Giles cleared his throat, clearly taken with the other woman's ethereal beauty, which Buffy had to admit was pretty substantial.

"Yes. Hello, my name is-"

"Rupert Giles," she finished, smiling to gather his hand in a warm handshake before turning her attention to Buffy. "And you're the Slayer, Buffy Summers." The woman's eyes twinkled in delight, and Buffy noticed that one was a deep blue, the other a vibrant green. She couldn't help but smile at the older woman.

"You get that from the guards?" she asked wryly.

Marlena laughed, a sound like silvery bells, and waved a hand.

"Not at all," she smiled, and Buffy's eyes widened as she heard Marlena's voice in her head.

_(You're not the only one with gifts, my dear.)_

Buffy shook her head in amazement.

"A telepath?" she asked. Marlena smiled and nodded.

"Who better to serve as a caretaker than a mind reader?" she quipped mirthfully as she gestured to a set of doors. "Come, we have much to discuss."

She held out an arm to Giles, who bashfully took it, and led them towards another pair of huge ornate doors, that opened as they approached–

–Revealing a sprawling sunlit garden.

Buffy and Giles stopped short in astonishment, this was a not a small topiary garden, but a lush vibrant garden, complete with a waterfall spilling into a lagoon… backwards, no less, and with multicolored birds flittering about. Buffy gaped at it slack-jawed, and looked behind her through the open door - she could see windows that clearly showed outside and clearly showed it being night.

"How…?" she began.

Marlena threw her head back and laughed heartily.

"Within these walls, the only laws to be obeyed are Mother Nature's… and she's been known to bend them from time to time."

She reached out and a bird that looked like it was made up out of blue gemstones landed in her palm. Buffy gasped in wonder and even Giles stared openly. Marlena smiled and gently nudged the gemstone bird from her hand to be cupped in Buffy's. Buffy looked down and grinned like a child, stroking the bird's smooth head. It chirped at her and flew away. Marlena smiled and gestured towards a stone bench.

"Come," she invited smiling.

Buffy and Giles continued to stare in awe at the garden of wonders, before sitting down at the bench. Marlena reached out and plucked three glasses of ice tea from a tray being carried by an enormous ruby tortoise.

"Thank you, Aeon," Marlena smiled warmly at the turtle. It made a grunting sound and slowly plodded away, its jeweled shell glinting in the sunlight. Buffy continued to look around slack jawed. Marlena caught her look with a wry grin.

"Not what you were expecting was it?" she asked politely. Buffy could only nod her head in amazement. Marlena laughed another silver bells laugh before elaborating.

"You came here expecting Bedlam and instead receive the Land of Oz. I understand," she smiled wryly, "my reaction was similar when I came here."

Buffy immediately remembered why they had come here.

"Yeah, that's sort of why I came here. You see, I need to talk with Dr. Benedict. It's really important."

Marlena nodded.

"It must be, Sunnydale is a long way from Crown Point." She looked out at the garden and gestured outwards.

"Tell me what you see out there, young lady," she asked quietly.

Buffy peered out, blinking and shielding her eyes with her hand. She pointed,

"You mean those children playing?" she asked as she gestured at a few children skipping rope… with a rope that was skipping itself.

Marlena smiled slightly and shook her head.

"Those aren't just children, they're patients here," she informed them.

Buffy and Giles looked at each other in shock and turned their eyes back to their hostess.

"You mean those kids are…?" Buffy asked, unsure how to phrase the question.

"Insane?" Marlena cocked a silver eyebrow. She shook her head. "Not in the gibbering madman clichéd sense of the word, but their minds simply aren't capable of coping with 'reality' as it exists beyond this walls," she turned to regard the children sadly, "and so there is no place in the world for them. Or rather, they have no place in the world as it has become. Their minds are too fragile, their hearts too innocent, and their powers…" she smiled and gestured, "well, judge for yourself."

Buffy and Giles turned to look, and gaped in bewilderment as a child, no older than seven, lifted a marble sphere ten times her size and began playing catch with another child.

Marlena chuckled sadly.

"No. They could not endure the evils of the world. They would either go truly mad and hurt people, or become agents of evil." She turned back to her guests. "The Grigori estate isn't an asylum; it's a sanctuary, for those who truly do not belong in the outside world.

"And Dr. Benedict?" Giles asked cautiously. A flicker of some unidentifiable emotion rippled over Marlena's face.

"Sasha is a special case, he's extremely gifted." She began to rattle off statistics, "I.Q. that can't be tested, extremely powerful telepath, clairvoyant, telekinesis, psychokinesis, astral projector pyrokinesis, psionics, ESP, you name it."

She held her hands out in front of her and, to Buffy and Giles' amazement, a small ghostly flame appeared.

"Think of this as your average human mind." She gestured to the flame. "No extraordinary powers of any sort."

She concentrated… and with a whoosh, the tiny flame became a colossal phantasmal conflagration. Buffy and Giles yelped and leapt back in alarm, causing the children to point at them and giggle. Marlena smiled and dispelled the pyre. Buffy blinked and sat cautiously in her chair.

"Let me guess, THAT represents Sasha's brain?" she commented dryly.

Marlena shook her head.

"Oh no, child, I do not possess enough power to translate his psyche into a visual representation, that was just a part of it." She smiled slightly at the expressions of stunned disbelief on their faces. She sighed.

"His mind is great and powerful, his heart unconquerable, it's such a tragedy that his soul is in such an empty state," she stated mournfully.

Giles frowned.

"Empty?" he asked puzzled.

Marlena nodded.

"Yes, Rupert. Unlike demons, who rarely possess souls of their own," she smiled at him, "which explains the keeper demon's interest in your son, Alec," she confided, "but we will discuss this later."

Giles didn't even look surprised that she knew about Alec, merely nodded as Marlena steered the conversation back on course.

"Unlike a creature that possesses no soul, or a black soul, Sasha possesses a soul of glass. Light and darkness just pass through it, leaving no lasting impression. Good and evil are simply concepts that do not apply to him." She tilted her head to the side. "I suppose in that way, he has evolved past being a man," she added thoughtfully.

Buffy's eyes widened as a thought hit her like a thunderclap.

" 'A location known to no man'," she whispered breathlessly. Giles inhaled sharply at that.

"You believe Sasha knows the location of the Everstone?" he breathed, incredulously.

Buffy nodded emphatically.

Marlena frowned. "You seek the Everstone?" she asked politely.

Buffy nodded. "It's a long story," she told her.

Marlena smiled in sudden understanding.

"So it's happened at last - Eden's seed has returned."

Slayer and Watcher exchanged confused looks at that term.

"What form has it taken?" Marlena asked in a whisper.

"What whose form?" Buffy asked puzzled. Giles cleared his throat, understanding to what she was referring to.

"Her name is Dawn. She's assumed the role of Buffy's younger sister," Giles informed Marlena, who gasped and beamed.

"That's brilliant, the Key of Eternity's Light within the Slayer's sister," she breathed and shook her head in amazement.

Buffy frowned.

" 'Key of Eternity's Light?' " she asked querulously.

Marlena chuckled, and patted Buffy's knee,

"Forgive me, child, sometimes I forget in whose company I ramble in." She smiled and elaborated. "The Key of Eternity's Light is… sort of a convergence of extraordinary magical power; holy power, as it were. There are places like that in the world, Stonehenge, the Dead Sea, the wall of Jerusalem, and the hearts of most volcanoes. Places where the sheer power of light and creation are most abundant. This is the first time I've heard of it in the form of a person though." She shook her head in wonder. "How apropos that her name is 'Dawn'. For her power is like the dawn, bringing light and warmth and life to all she touches."

Buffy snorted a little.

"You make her sound like a saint, which, I can already tell you, she isn't."

Marlena smiled indulgently.

"Saints aren't perfect, child. Rather, they have the capacity for perfect love. Be it an entire species, or a place, or even a single person. Dawn far transcends sainthood in this aspect, she has it within her to love perfectly beyond all understanding of any that walks this world. It is this love that will bring about the destruction of the Hellmouth." She smiled slightly. "I assume that is your quest? To seek out the Everstone, the wordless psalm, and the Vitae Noir?"

Buffy frowned.

"Vitae Noir?" she asked puzzled.

"The blood of the Neverborn," she clarified.

"I beg your pardon, Marlena, but how do you know so much about the Hellmouth?" Giles asked politely. Marlena smiled at him.

"It's very simple, Rupert. I've been in it."

Buffy and Giles didn't think they could be surprised anymore, they were gravely mistaken.

"You've been _in_ it?" Buffy asked. "How?"

Marlena thought back.

"It was a long time ago. I was just a girl when I heard the Call."

"The Call?" Buffy frowned, this was getting confusing.

Marlena smiled in an almost maternal way.

"Yes child, The Call. Just as others before me heard it, and those that came after me did." She gently reached out and placed a finger on Buffy's brow.

"Just as you did."

Buffy leapt back.

"Who are you?" she asked breathlessly.

Marlena smiled.

"Forgive me, I keep forgetting your powers have not fully developed."

She took a deep breath, her chest puffed with pride.

"My name is Marlena de la Rosa Esperanza, knight of the order of Saint Michael." She smiled slightly.

"Vampire Slayer."

There was a stunned silence following Marlena's revelation. Giles found his voice first.

"But… you died!" he exclaimed quietly. Marlena smiled indulgently.

"Death can be, at times, a very transitory thing," she replied gently.

Buffy shook her head.

"I don't get it, though. You went crazy and died…" Her eyes widened in understanding as Marlena's smile broadened.

"That's right, I died in a madhouse." She gestured to the gardens and the palatial surroundings. "Of course, this place looked a lot different in the eleventh century but…" she shrugged.

Poor Giles looked overwhelmed; the hard right turns were coming too fast for him.

"But your blood was found all over the walls, you'd slit your own wrists," Giles struggled to understand.

Marlena nodded patiently.

"Yes, I did, and I died and the next Slayer was called… and then I awoke," she stated simply.

"Uh… not to disagree with you or anything, but most people do not simply shrug off dying like a hangover," Buffy put in.

Marlena laughed.

"Remember what I said about mystical convergences?" she asked the young slayer.

Buffy nodded… and abruptly understood.

"You mean… HERE?" she breathed.

Marlena laughed. "Do you think insects made of gemstones or a mansion whose interior exceeds its exterior by several factors could exist anywhere else?" she asked her mildly.

Buffy felt like a blundering novice before the older ex-slayer.

"No… no, I guess not," she ventured. She looked back up at the older woman.

"So, you didn't go crazy?" she asked her. Marlena shook her head.

"I really don't remember, as odd as that may sound, I just remember the Hellmouth being… horrible," she shuddered slightly before regaining her composure.

"My order was wiped out, attempting to rid it from the world. It is my fervent hope, that you will succeed where I failed." She placed a warm hand on Buffy's shoulder.

"Yeah. Mine, too," Buffy commented dryly.

Giles cleared his throat.

"I beg your pardon, Marlena, but would it at all be permissible to speak to Sasha?" he asked tentatively.

Marlena smiled broadly.

"Of course you may speak to him, I will take you to him."

Buffy frowned.

"What? Just like that?" she asked disbelievingly.

Marlena laughed. "Buffy, you must understand - Grigori Estate is not a prison, every single person that resides in these walls does so of their own free will," she informed her.

Buffy blanched. "You mean Sasha…"

"Sasha became a guest here after the incident regarding the killings, yes. His powers were coming into their own and he could no longer function in the outside world." Marlena got up and led Buffy and Giles back into the main building.

"Sasha is no more a prisoner here, then I am, or those children are, or you are," she told them.´

Buffy frowned.

"What about all those guards and the gates? Aren't they designed to keep everyone in?" she asked, confused.

Marlena laughed.

"Of course not, anyone here is free to leave whenever they choose. The guards are here to keep others _OUT_. Remember that this place is a powerful magical convergence. Such places are rare and their powers are often coveted by others." She looked back at Buffy. "This is why you and Rupert were allowed to enter instead of your friends, Willow, or Alec; anyone who can utilize any sort of magical power is not allowed within the manor gates. The temptation to tap into the power here might prove too great and that would be catastrophic." Marlena's face darkened. "As Sasha learned six years ago." She shook her head.

Buffy's eyes widened.

"When he killed everyone?" she asked.

Marlena nodded.

"It was an accident. A guard had forgotten to activate the protective glyph outside Sasha's room. During the night, Sasha suffers from chronic nightmares. Sasha unconsciously tapped into the node of power here and his nightmares psionically manifested."

Buffy shuddered remembering her own encounters with nightmares brought to life.

"So, what happened?" she asked carefully as they were led down a long corridor lined with mirrors, dominated by a large pair of similarly mirrored doors at the end of the hall.

Marlena sighed and opened the doors with a touch.

"I died… again," she stated simply.

Gesturing, she escorted Buffy and Giles through the doors–

–And into a huge room filled with a thousand burning points of light.

For a moment, Buffy and Giles just stared. There were hundreds of thousand of mirrors, huge pillars reflecting the candlelight. Buffy looked down and gasped as a great looming darkness stretched out beneath her dotted by millions of tiny pinpricks of light. She looked straight up and saw pillars of candlelit flames and their reflections stretched higher and higher into the air, until they looked like millions of stars. Buffy was seized by a sudden bout of vertigo and she stumbled slightly. Marlena caught her easily and steadied her.

"I told you Sasha had an impressive mind," she smiled slightly.

Behind them Giles was rotating around, trying to take in the sheer scope and size and majestic beauty of the room, dark, except for the millions of tiny flames. Buffy looked up at Marlena in awe.

"Is this Sasha's room?" she whispered.

"No," a voice called out. "This is he."

The voice reverberated through the shadowy chambers. Both Giles and Buffy gasped as some of the candle flames began to move, slowly at first, then like millions of tiny fire flies, they coalesced into a colossal vaguely humanoid torso, arms and head looming over them against a backdrop of millions of pinpricks of light. The being tilted its head to the side in greeting, stretching out huge flaming arms in a grand gesture of greeting,

"Welcome to my construct," the voice said again, reverberating through the room like a tuning fork. Buffy and Giles just stared in awe.

"How? What? Who?" Buffy babbled. Marlena smiled.

"This is Sasha's mind, all of this he created psionically. The candle flames are his thoughts. This is a psionic construct. It's how Sasha chooses to interact with the corporeal world."

Buffy gaped at her,

"But what about… a body?" she asked flabbergasted.

There was a chiming sound, deep and resonating, and it took Buffy a moment to realize it was laughter.

"My body has not been required for quite some time," Sasha, 'said', the thousand-flame figure gestured to the millions of other tiny sparks of light. "Unless it is to interact with others, I reside within," the flame figure pointed to its head, "here," the voice stated simply.

"Innerspace," Giles breathed.

There was another resonating chime, like a tuning fork, and Buffy got the impression it was a sound of approving.

"Yes," Sasha replied, echoing. "I exist within the vast world that is within my mind. I travel without moving, I communicate without speaking. I exist in past, present, and future. I am as thought and energy."

Buffy shook her head in awe.

"This is so… unbelievable," she whispered, turning slowly to stare at all the candle flames and reflected candlelight. There was the chiming laugh again.

"You were expecting perhaps some poor crippled lunatic?" the huge flaming head titled itself in amusement.

Buffy looked up at it.

"Well… yes," she replied truthfully. There was the chiming laughter again.

"I am as far beyond my own mortal manifestation as the human species above the amoeba," Sasha declared.

Marlena gave it a patient look.

"Sasha, dear, I think you've made a grand enough first impression. Very much 'the great and terrible Wizard of Oz'. Unlike you, however, these people do not have the luxury in three tenses of time measurement, your prompt help would be appreciated." She smiled back at Buffy and Giles.

"You'll have to forgive Sasha, he doesn't suffer fools well," she stated simply, without malice or insult.

Giles took off his glasses and wiped them.

"No. I mean, yes, of course," he squinted at the huge flaming figure, still not quite believing his eyes, before putting his glasses back on. The flaming figure seemed to consider.

"Very well," Sasha's tuning fork voice reverberated through the dark chamber. "It is the location of the Everstone you seek?"

Buffy nodded her head fervently.

"Yes, please, can you help us? It's very important."

The flaming figure suddenly shifted and Buffy found herself confronted by a thirty-foot smooth face, made entirely of tiny flames, wholly lacking in any detail. No mouth, nose or eyes, yet, Buffy was under the impression that if it had possessed such things, it would right now be quirking an eyebrow questioningly.

"Is it?" the voice responded questioningly, a touch of something that vaguely resembled condescension.

Buffy refused to be intimidated any further by Sasha.

"Yes. It is," she declared firmly. "It's pretty damn important as a matter of fact. I know that you're so much more advanced than I am, so I'm sure you can understand that having the world devoured by the Hellmouth would be a _bad_ thing," she finished, glaring up at the flaming face.

"Buffy…" Giles started cautioning. Marlena put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.

The flaming face peered even closer to Buffy, she could feel the heat of the millions of candles, and she began to sweat, but refused to back down as she was being scrutinized as a man might scrutinize a strange insect. The face tilted slightly to one side, then pulled away suddenly. Buffy stumbled as the searing heat left her. She put her hands to her face and gasped quietly when she realized the skin on her face was cool. She looked back up at the flaming half-man.

"The location of the Everstone is as follows," the flaming man spoke, reaching out a single burning finger. "Your hand," it demanded.

Buffy tentatively opened her hand… and with a searing pain, the fiery psionic manifestation lightly touched her palm with its finger. Buffy cried out and pulled away.

"Buffy!" Giles cried out, rushing to her.

Buffy cradled her hand to her chest, wincing in pain. Tentatively she opened it… revealing a tiny fire-orange and red stone. The stone was cool to the touch, her skin was undamaged; she did a double take as she placed the stone in her other hand to inspect it for the damage that had to be there. There was none, she looked up at the burning man.

"This? This is the Everstone?" she asked.

"No," Sasha's voice boomed. Buffy jumped back. "The stone will reveal to you the location of the Everstone," Sasha stated evenly.

Buffy frowned and touched the stone, it began to glow weakly, flickering like a flashlight with dying batteries. Like a broken holographic projector, an odd, writhing shape sputtered into view. It hovered, flickering weakly, translucently, over the Slayer's hand. It continued to writhe and shift, and yet, seemed to have some sort of pattern, some underlying sense of structure. The movement was jerky, though, uneven, like a computer trying to run a program with not enough memory, or some sort of crude animation. Without warning, it sputtered once, and died; Buffy frowned at it and looked up at the fiery manifestation.

"This? This is the location of the Everstone? Some sort of defective 3-D inkblot?" she demanded.

"It is," Sasha stated simply.

Buffy scoffed and sighed, putting a hand to her head wearily. Why was it the more important something was, the more cryptic it had to be? She turned and handed it to Giles, who stared at it. To their surprise, the stone glowed brightly and yet in a subdued manner, not even producing the flickering, sputtering, phantasmal image. Buffy threw her hands up in the air.

"Well, that's just perf-"

There was a loud chiming sound that boomed through the vast chambers, like a thousand grandfather clocks going off at once. Buffy leapt back, afraid, despite herself, that she had offended Sasha. Indeed there was a tone of urgency to the sound.

Giles jerked his head to Marlena.

"What's happening?" he asked, slightly panicked.

Marlena turned to face him, calm, but with a tightness around her eyes belying her tension.

"That's the alarm," she stated calmly.

"The Estate is under attack."


	20. Chapter 18 Lies Men Tell Part 1

Giles, Marlena, and Buffy rushed from the dark room, down the mirrored corridor, and into the great hall...

...To find that the battle was well underway.

The attackers, clad head to toe in black clothes and masks, were wreaking havoc on the Estate defenders. Some on bikes, others on dune buggies, and, unless Buffy was hallucinating, some were _flying_; all of them were attacking the Estate's defenders. Some wielded machine guns and swords, but others seemed to be throwing fire, lightening, ice and other impossible magic.

Buffy turned to Marlena.

"Who are they?" she yelled.

"The Spaarti Tribe," Marlena sighed, shaking her head is dismay. She looked up to see Buffy and Giles giving her an inquisitive look. "Warlocks, witches, mages, a nomadic tribe of magic-users," she explained. "They try to raid the Estate every now and then for the power. Their leader, DeGanon, has orchestrated several raids of chantries all around the world. They seek out the most powerful sources of magic and pillage them. Grigori Estate is one of the few he hasn't sacked. Yet," she turned away from the window, frowning, "it's odd, though. He just tried to raid this place three months ago; it's too soon for him."

"Our friends are outside the gate, we've got to get them into the compound!" Buffy cried.

Marlena shook her head.

"I'm sorry, NO awakened mystical beings are allowed onto the Estate grounds." She leveled a stern gaze at Buffy. "You were allowed because you are the Slayer," she shifted her glance to Giles, "and you were, because your _arête_ has dwindled to the point that any impact it may have on the convergence would be insignificant."

She turned back to Buffy.

"But the witch, the former demon, the vampires...?" She shook her head "Their personal resonance is far too disruptive to be allowed within the manor grounds." She shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry, your friends are on their own."

Buffy's eyes narrowed to slits as she approached the older woman, her stance lethal.

"So, you won't lift a finger to help my friends who are trying to save the world, which, incidentally, includes your precious little mystical hotspot?" she hissed angrily.

Marlena shook her head.

"The rules are clear. I cannot deviate from them," she replied.

"Sod your rules, that's my _son_ out there!" Giles hissed while angrily gripping her arm tightly.

Marlena jerked her arm out of his grasp. "I will not put the innocent souls that claim sanctuary in this place at risk for anyone; not for you, Rupert, and especially not for your son. The Scion of Annihilation must not be allowed access to the power of this hall!"

Giles frowned. i¬The Scion of Annihilation?/i

Buffy stepped right into Marlena's face.

"Well, then, as far as I'm concerned," she whispered, her voice hard as steel, eyes flashing with rage, "your claims to being a Slayer died when you did."

Before Marlena could utter a world, Buffy spun around and gathered Giles along with a look.

"Come on, Giles, we've got some mystical ass that needs kicking." Storming out of the main hall, she nearly plowed over Onyx. "Out of my way, gravel heap!" she snarled as she exited the building.

"Well, _this_…" Alec started, lashing out with his fists to knock another warlock off the roof of the RV, "…is fun," he finished.

He, Faith, Xander, Spike, and Angel were busy fighting off the mages that had just… _appeared_ all of a sudden, draped in black, complete with domino masks, hurling fire and lightening. Willow had gotten a protective spell up sealing the bus off with herself, Dawn, and Anya inside. Spike, unable to engage in physical conflict with humans due to the chip in his head, resorted to hurling Molotov cocktails made from his ample whiskey stash. He and Alec were standing on top of the RV, Spike hurling his bombs and Alec covering him with cracking darkness whips.

But they were badly outnumbered. Both Faith and Xander, fighting at the base of the RV, were nursing some bad burns from a pyromaniacally inclined mage, and Spike's arm was still numb from a blast of mystical ice that would have killed him had he been alive.

"These odds suck," Alec commented dryly as he lashed out, catching another of the masked mages across the face, knocking him from his bike.

Spike snorted. "Ya great, Poof," he taunted his friend, before heaving another whiskey bomb off the roof of the bus. It crashed, and exploded against the ground, sending a blaze of fire roaring up and causing a dirtbike riding mage to veer sharply away and topple off it, crashing to the ground hard.

Suddenly, Alec's eyes widened in inspiration, and, leaning down over the roof, he tapped the glowing force field, causing it to hum and crackle. Willow looked up as Alec pointed to the burning patch of earth caused by Spike's bomb. She looked at it, then back at Alec, confused. He traced a circle in the air with two fingers. Willow nodded hurriedly in understanding and dug into her bag, manifesting a lighter. She held it up for him to see; he smiled and gave her a thumbs up before righting himself back onto the roof of the bus.

He turned to Spike.

"Watch this," he muttered as he dodged a lightening bolt thrown by a flying mage. "Angel! Faith! Xander! Close ranks!" Alec yelled. They looked up at him, and moved closer to the bus.

Spike shot him a quizzical look.

"What the hell are you do-"

With a whoosh, the fire burning on the ground blazed up suddenly, catching the lightening-bolt tossing warlock across the head. There was a scream as the mage plummeted to the earth. Alec grinned as he pointed to the flame.

"Look!" he whooped.

Spike followed his glance and his eyes widened by what he saw. The fire had elongated and had begun to completely encircle the bus in a roaring wall of fire. The blond vampire whistled.

"You _do_ have her cycle memorized, right, mate?" he quipped lightly.

Alec grinned, but then his face morphed into one of alarm and he pointed.

"Spike! On your left!"

Spike whipped around just in time to see a flying mage, completely immersed in flames and out of control slam hard into him. Spike yelled in pain and plunged off the bus, straight towards the burning wall of flame.

"Spike!" Alec cried out and dove, catching the vampire by the foot just as the hair on his head came into brief contact with the flaming wall.

"Bloody hell!!" Spike cried, slapping the fire out.

Alec hauled Spike back up onto the roof of the RV, dumping him unceremoniously on his backside. Spike landed with a grunt, then looked up at his friend and offered him a jaunty salute. Alec sighed in relief and turned… just in time to see a warlock that hadn't been there before smash a fist into his face. There was a flash of light as Alec toppled from the camper roof, hitting the ground hard. He coughed and spit out sand before looking up at the warlock.

The mage put his hands together and slowly pulled them apart, revealing a wicked looking blade made up of pure light, and, with a war cry, leapt from the bus, the blade aimed straight at Alec's heart. The half demon tried in vain to roll away or shadowport, but he had no room to manoeuver. The blade descended… and with a bestial roar, Spike clotheslined the warlock _hard_, sending him sprawling away. The vampire grabbed his head and groaned in pain, but waved Alec off when he tried to help.

"I owed you, mate," he replied through gritted teeth.

Alec nodded and turned back to the mage, who had gotten to his feet and had once again put his hands together.

"I've seen this trick already," Alec commented and, with a growl, leapt out with a flying kick, black boots slamming hard into his opponent's face. The mage spun around, dazed, as Alec landed and proceeded to pummel him with a rapid-fire barrage of punches and kicks.

Spike saw this and grinned.

"Kick his ass!" he cried.

Turning, he saw Xander struggling with another mage. Snatching up a handful of dirt, the vampire yelled out, "Hey Merlin!" When the mage stopped to turn to him, Spike threw the grit into his eyes. The mage released Xander to wipe at his eyes, giving Xander a chance to slam a fist across his head and send him spinning away.

"Thanks!" Xander yelled out. Spike nodded and turned to the next fight.

Meanwhile, Alec had finished a particularly brutal combination on the energy mage, ending with a wrench to the mage's arm, dislocating it with a snap. The person cried out in pain, and Alec frowned.

It was a woman's cry.

Jerking the mage up, he ripped the mask from the mage's face, revealing a girl of no more than fifteen. She had short blond hair and a nose ring. A pair of teardrops were tattooed crudely on her face. Alec frowned in puzzlement.

"What the-" he began.

The woman took advantage of Alec's momentary surprise and slammed an elbow into him. Alec grunted in pain and released her as the woman put her hands together. Her teardrop tattoos started to glow as she conjured another energy blade. With a roar, she charged the dazed shadowmancer.

"Now that wasn't very nice," a voice came from Alec's right.

He turned just in time to see Angel come barreling in, tackling the young woman hard. She fell to the ground with the dark-haired vampire on top of her. He quickly turned her over and reared a fist back, then froze.

The woman's mouth sagged open like a fish, blood trickling out of it, her face freezing into a death grimace. Angel looked down and, with a start, realized that she had fallen on her own energy blade. A hideous burn blazed right over her heart, the organ having been seared in half. He looked up at her in sudden comprehension.

"I'm sorry," he whispered hoarsely. The young girl didn't respond, merely pointed with a trembling hand at Angel's face.

"Angelus," she croaked in horrified recognition, then added something in a language that turned Angel's blood cold. The hand fell away and the girl shuddered once, then lay still. Angel got off of her, his expression completely stricken.

"It was an accident, I didn't mean to," he whispered to himself mantra-like.

Alec and Spike jumped down from the roof of the RV and Alec suddenly grabbed his arm.

"Angel! She's dead!"

Alec's words brought Angel back to reality like a bucket of cold water. The vampire turned to him, his brown eyes wide.

"It was an accident, she was just a child," he whispered hoarsely, "She's dead."

"So are we, if we don't get our bloody arses in gear, now move! Now!"

He shoved Angel towards the burning wall of flame still surrounding the camper. "Go get Buffy and Dad!"

Angel nodded, and, wrapping his long coat around him, took a running start and leapt through the fiery wall. He landed on the other side and rolled, stripping from the burning jacket and throwing it away. A heavy hand fell onto his shoulder. He spun around, fists at the ready.

"Angel!" Buffy cried.

Angel lowered his hands in recognition.

"Buffy," he sighed. "Where's Giles?"

Buffy jerked her head towards the complex.

"He went back inside, said he was going to try to wrangle up some help. Nobody in there is willing to come out and lend us a hand, though," she spat out the last bit.

Angel nodded.

"Yeah, I noticed that. Duck!" he yelled.

Buffy did a split and Angel slammed a hard fist into another mage that had come up behind her, before grabbing his shoulder and propelling him through the fire. He heard the mage collide hard with the metal RV and smiled grimly.

"Who are these guys?" he asked, looking around at the chaos surrounding them.

"Group of renegade wizards. They're after the Estate, something about them going for the most powerful source of mag–"

Buffy stopped, her eyes widening. "Dawn," she whispered. She spun to Angel.

"They're after Dawn!" she yelled.

Wasting no time, Angel gathered her up in his arms, and, covering her with his body, leapt back through the flame, they rolled on the ground and came to their feet before Spike, Faith, Alec, and Xander.

"They're after Dawn!" Buffy repeated.

Alec's face tightened into a mask of cold rage.

"Oh, I don't think so," he growled, his voice about as lethal as Buffy had ever heard it. With a growl, Alec leapt to the top of the RV, his eyes dissolving into pools of roaring darkness.

"Alec!" Buffy yelled after him.

Alec raised his arms high into the sky and his coat exploded into a huge rolling darkness, flaring out behind him like huge rippling wings. The jacket became even larger and wrapped around the RV, shielding it from the attackers and blocking anyone inside from seeing out.

"They don't need to see what happens next," Alec gurgled in an inhuman voice, then fell to his knees and howled in pain as darkness erupted out of his body, seeping out of the pores of his flesh like an oil slick and writhing up his skin.

Within seconds he was encased in a writhing second skin of oily darkness. Speckles of white and gray marred the surface as his face became a bone white mask accentuated by streaks of darkness.

"Time to die," roared the thing that had once been Alec.

He leapt down from the RV, landing on the opposite side of the others as he didn't want them to see this either, and began to attack. He had grown huge, midnight-black claws and he used them to slash and tear at their attackers, who died screaming and clutching weeping, bloody wounds.

Some came with magic – fire, and ice, and lightening, but as they struck Alec's oily armor, it was only absorbed in the darkness, like a light being flung down a bottomless well from which there was no escape from the crushing blackness.

Alec seized one by the head and twisted savagely; vertebrae snapped like kindling and the body went rag-doll limp. He tossed it away and moved on to the next, a youth no older than seventeen wielding a crowbar. Alec snatched the weapon from the youth and lashed out with his claws. A splash of blood, a scream, and the boy fell dead.

A flicker of movement caught the half-demon's attention and he turned. Anya was staring wide-eyed and face stark white in horror.

"Take cover!" Alec screeched, a high pitched howling sound like the wail of some ancient wounded reptile.

"Demon!" A voice cried out from behind him.

He turned and a bolt of pure light slammed hard into his chest, rocketing him backwards into the RV with enough force to send the huge vehicle rocking on its wheels.

Alec coughed in pain, the darkness draining away from him for a moment, exposing just his face as he looked up to see a flying woman with silver hair descend from the skies to land on the ground and advance on him.

"Now you will pay for your…" Her voice trailed off as she stared at Alec in wide-eyed shock. "Blessed Hecate!"

Alec looked down at himself: his torso had been blown apart by the blast, charred bits of viscera and cauterized organs fell wetly out of his body, fused into a solid, disgusting mass. The blast should have blown clean through him, but instead of a hole, there was a vast swirling darkness, a great vortex that crackled with purple energy and took up his entire chest cavity.

Alec looked up to meet the woman's eyes, his expression sliding from shock right into something that could only be described as gloating as his torso began to knit itself back together.

"Nice trick. My turn."

Frantically, the woman threw another bolt of magic. Alec called forth a shield of swirling darkness from his hand that absorbed the bolt.

"Word of advice - never wound what you cannot kill," Alec hissed through oily black teeth.

The woman took to the sky again, frantically, but the younger Giles had no interest in letting his prey escape. He snatched up the crowbar the dead boy had been using and squeezed the tip - darkness oozed from his grasp and dissolved a portion of the end, leaving it pointed and sharp.

Alec conjured a darkness tendril, wrapped it around the other end of the makeshift harpoon, took aim, and hurled it.

"Come to me," he whispered as the weapon hurtled through the sky and, with a cry, the woman was impaled through the shoulder by the sharpened missile.

She fell to the ground hard and with a sob of pain as Alec retracted the line, dragging her towards him like a fish on a hook.

Something roared off to Alec's left and he turned just in time to see a blurred shape, oddly resembling a panther made of stone, slam into him like a freight train. Alec lost his grip on the harpoon and the silver-haired woman was left limp on the ground. She tried to pull at the harpoon and gasped in sheer agony as she realized that the weapon, coated in liquid darkness, began to consume her shoulder, cell by cell.

Alec thrashed with the creature that roared and snarled at him like a wild cat: it was a wild cat, but it was made of stone, not flesh, and it was enraged beyond all measure. Alec fought desperately to keep the creature's jaws from his neck as it snapped at him. Suddenly, the young man spat at the creature's eyes, and it was struck by a solid glob of oily darkness, making it wail in pain and leap back as the material began to eat away at its forehead. It roared and charged at Alec again and the young man caught it by both upper and lower jaws. For a moment the pair stood like that, beast on its hind legs trying to clamp down with its jaw, demon on its feet prying it apart.

Alec jerked, there was a loud _crack_, and the cat yowled in pain and fell to the ground, mewling in pain.

"Onyx!" the silver-haired witch cried and she staggered to her feet and charged.

Alec readied himself for another attack, but instead she fell to her knees in the dirt, disheveled, bloody, and ragged looking where once she had been regal, and cradled the wounded beast in her arms. The cat creature looked up at her and mewled softly in pain and tried to nuzzle her hand even as the blob of oily darkness Alec had spat upon it was eating its way through its head.

The silver-haired woman looked up at Alec and her expression was one of immense sorrow.

"Whatever evil you intend, Spaarti, spare the innocent of this hall, I beg of you!"

The darkness drained from Alec's body, revealing a young man, pale, frightened, and horrified by what he had done. Whatever this woman was, regardless of whether or not she had attacked him first, this was not a creature of evil.

"You're not after Dawn?"

"No, I'm the protector of this place, my name is Marlena. You're not of the Spaarti?"

Alec shook his head vigorously and dropped down beside her, gently touching the dying beast.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"You didn't think! You're just like he was - a violent vicious animal! Do you care for anything, _DUSK_, or is your hunger for death all that matters to you?" Marlena cried, tears of sorrow and rage scalding a wet trail down her face.

Gently, Alec placed his hands over the cat's head.

"I care," was all he said as he closed his eyes for a moment.

There was a slight sound, like water through a straw, and the stain of inky darkness spreading across Onyx's face like a cancer receded like the tide and vanished under Alec's touch.

Marlena gasped in amazement, gently stroking the cat's head. It was still badly damaged, but the cat was no longer dying.

Alec gestured at the harpoon still lodged in her shoulder.

"May I please help you with that?"

She hesitated, then nodded. Alec carefully took the weapon in both his hands, closed his eyes and slowly the weapon began to dissolve. Within moments it was nothing more than wisps of shadow stuff that vanished like smoke into the night air. She gasped in relief and fell boneless upon Onyx's flank as the pain ceased.

"I'm sorry," the young man whispered.

Marlena looked up at him then.

"One day, Alec;, that will not be enough." Marlena took a handful of dirt and, packing it into Onyx's wounds, chanted softly. Within seconds the cat was healed and it purred happily, though it glared warily at Alec.

"Hey!" a voice called out.

Alec turned to see Buffy and the others running towards them.

He turned to Marlena. "What are you going to tell them?"

"The truth; that one of the Spaarti got in a lucky shot and you saved my life; a half truth, if not an outright lie," Marlena replied with a slight smile.

Alec returned it cautiously. "Thank you."

Gingerly he reached out and scratched the stone cat behind its ears. Onyx looked dubious for a moment but then, amazingly, began to purr and lean into his touch. Alec looked up in shock.

"How is this possible?"

Marlena smiled again. "Onyx forgives quickly, it's a lesson you should consider learning."

By now the others had reached them. Giles looked down at his son.

"I see you've taken my request to show more cautionary behavior in combat to heart," he chided his son gently.

Alec raised an eyebrow. "Don't start with me, Dad," he growled.

Giles laughed and shook his head as the others helped Marlena and Alec to their feet to sit upon the back of a giant red tortoise that had lumbered up to them.

Marlena took Alec's hand in hers and squeezed tightly, reassuringly. Alec looked at her and smiled, softly and with intense gratitude. He felt something inside relax a little, unclench and let the light in, and it felt good. He turned his glance to his father.

"Dad?"

"Yes, son?"

"Can I ask you a very important question?"

"Yes, son?"

"Was I hit on the head or am I sitting on a big red turtle?"

"So, what were they after?" Anya asked as she helped bandage Xander's burn.

Buffy and Giles had just explained their encounter in the asylum and everyone was seated in a circle outside the bus. The former vengeance demon would occasionally sneak worried peeks at Alec, who appeared to be oblivious to it all, sagged in an exhausted heap against Willow, who looked like she was ready for a nap herself. Faith had offered to stay behind on the bus with Dawn since Buffy wasn't sure she wanted Dawn to hear everything they'd be discussing.

Marlena shrugged.

"The Spaarti tribe," Marlena explained, "are renegade mages. They come up from the city every six months or so and attempt a raid on the Estate."

"They're children," Angel put in quietly. Everyone turned to look at him. "I got a good look at one before…" His voice trailed away and he looked down.

Buffy put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Alec had filled them all in on what had happened.

"It wasn't your fault," she whispered fiercely, her voice full of compassion.

Spike did his best to ignore them… and ignore the growing discomfort right where his unbeating heart lie cold in his chest.

Angel sighed and shook himself.

"They're also Romany." He looked up at Buffy. "One of them recognized me as Angelus, the cursed. She spoke in the gypsy tongue."

Giles frowned.

"Gypsies? From Jenny's tribe?" he asked.

Angel shook his head.

"I don't know, but if they were then they might have been after me, for vengeance against… things," he finished quietly.

"The gypsies are big into the whole 'eternal vengeance' thing," Willow put in softly, resting against Alec. They both looked like they needed a serious nap.

Marlena sighed.

"It could be any number of things - Angel, Dawn, the Estate. The point is that they'll be back and probably in larger numbers. We've never had a problem fighting them back before. But they've gotten a lot stronger lately." Marlena shook her head. "I don't think you should stay here anymore." She turned to the horizon which was beginning to lighten.

Spike and Angel were already on their feet, the younger only stopping to place a kiss on Buffy's cheek, who smiled and patted his hand, before he followed Angel onto the bus.

Marlena smiled wryly.

"I see the trend of Slayers falling in love with vampires hasn't changed," she commented wryly.

Buffy regarded her, surprised.

"I was always under the impression that it was just slightly unusual for the Slayer to be dating her immortal enemies," she quipped sardonically.

Marlena smiled and shook her head.

"Unusual, yes, but not unknown. In my youth I was quite taken with a young vampire named Marcus." She smiled slightly at the memory. "He was six-feet tall, dark, and brooding." The silver-haired woman smiled wryly and gestured to the bus. "I'm sure you can relate, Buffy," she added knowingly.

The Slayer in question smiled and bit her lip.

"Yeah, I can picture it," she replied non-committaly.

Willow and Xander snorted slightly in disbelief, but didn't say anything.

Marlena continued.

"He was a vampire, make no mistake, he could be pretty brutal. But he was also a poet, and a romantic, and a gentleman." She smiled, casting Buffy a sisterly look. "You should have seen our bed, covered with roses every night," she informed the younger Slayer.

Buffy smiled.

"That sounds romantic," she commented. "So what happened?"

Marlena sighed and shook her head.

"He died along with everyone else in the Hellmouth, that day," she wiped at her eyes a little, as Giles frowned.

"There was a vampire amidst the Order?" he asked disbelievingly.

Marlena composed herself and responded.

"Yes. He served as our guide into the Hellmouth, he led us to its resting place," she smiled softly, "you should have heard the fuss the Crusaders put up when they heard a _vampire_ was going to be leading them to the mouth of Hell." She shook her head. "Several centuries of dogma is not an easy thing to shrug off," she commented before falling silent, lost in her own memories.

"Anyhow," she finally spoke after a long silence, " after he died, I was a lost soul. His death, combined with the death of my order and the horrors of the Hellmouth..." Marlena frowned as if trying to remember a detail she'd forgotten, then shook her head. "Anyhow, after I died at the asylum, I spent several quiet centuries alone. I had my work, my magic, and my patients, but I still missed Marcus terribly," she smiled slightly.

"And then _he_ came," she shook her head wryly and turned to Buffy. "You would think I had learned my lesson after becoming involved with _one_ vampire," she chuckled self-deprecatingly, "but those eyes and that accent..."

Marlena closed her eyes and shuddered deliciously, suddenly looking very much like a young teenager in love instead of a thousand-year-old ex-Slayer turned witch risen from the grave. She sighed and opened her eyes. Buffy regarded her in shock.

"You don't mean… DRACULA?" she asked aghast.

Marlena smiled.

"The one and only, though Vlad always did insist on being referred to as 'Count Dracula". She grinned as her voice became a pretty good impression of the regal vampire's accent.

Buffy shook her head in awe.

"You got wild with Dracula?" she repeated.

Marlena grinned naughtily.

"Apparently, the Count made it a point of honor to seduce the Slayer of each generation." She blew a lock of silvery hair from her face. "Men with their conquests. Living or dead, it's all about what they can brag to their friends," she commented sardonically.

"On behalf of my gender – hey!" Xander put in.

Alec snorted wryly as Giles cleared his throat.

"The Count told us he was unaware of the location of the Estate," he ventured.

Marlena scoffed and shook her head in a gesture of one part affection, one part gentle exasperation.

"Well, that sounds like Vlad, all right," she turned to Buffy. "He _loves_ to play mind games. Riddles, puzzles - he's not happy unless he's got a woman's mind in knots and her heart in the same shape. He's like a child in that way." She grinned. "I love and adore him, but I wouldn't trust that evil creature within fifty feet of the Key," she advised.

Alec frowned.

"Odd that you say that," he commented. "He was the one that sent us on this merry romp to begin with." He regarded the ex-Slayer with dark eyes. "He seems pretty intent on seeing the Hellmouth eradicated. Claimed it posed a threat to his homeland."

Marlena snorted gently.

"Vlad always was a patriot at heart. Some things never change," she sighed softly.

Buffy spoke up.

"So, hold up, Dracula tries to get freaky with _every_ Slayer he encounters?" she asked disbelievingly, perhaps a little irked that she had not been alone in the charming vampire's affections as far as Slayers went. Alec was apparently having the same thought because he flashed his sister a weary grin as Marlena resumed speaking.

"Yes. During his breathing days he fell deeply in love with a Slayer," she began, "and when Vlad fell for someone- WHOO!" she exhaled hard. "Elisabeta was his whole world. When she was killed, ..." she shook her head sadly. "Well, Vlad didn't have much left and the transition between living and undead was not a drastic one as he tells it," she sighed.

"Anyhow, he's spent centuries seeking out Slayers, hoping that one of them might be the reincarnated spirit of his lost love. Vlad was obsessed," she added mournfully, "and every time, it would just be another disappointment. He'd leave, usually leaving them heartbroken, or he'd kill them in a fit of rage and turn them into vampires in remorse, but that didn't happen until much later."

Buffy gasped. "He KILLED them?!" she asked, aghast.

Marlena nodded. "Those three vampire brides he travels with? Each one of them was, at one point, a Slayer," Marlena explained.

Giles blanched, remembering his own encounter with the amorous vampire women.

"Those were Slayers?" he asked aghast.

Marlena nodded.

"He keeps them around because they most resemble his lost love. I think he keeps them around just to torture himself," she sighed and turned to Buffy. "Usually, the romantic vampires are also the professional martyrs," she commented.

Buffy nodded, still a little stunned.

"Yeah, I can relate," she replied softly.

Willow piped in.

"So, did Sasha tell you where the Everstone was?" she asked.

Buffy snapped out of her reverie and shook her head.

"Only in the most cryptic of ways," she bit out.

Giles rooted around in his pocket for the firestone and handed it to the witch. The instant her fingers came in contact with it, the stone flared to life as the odd design appeared over her hand; unlike with Buffy, it flowed smoothly, its image unwavering and crystal clear. Willow peered at it as it morphed and shifted hypnotically.

"I've seen something like this before," she said thoughtfully, frowning at the flowing geometric design.

Buffy frowned at it.

"It would barely work for me, and it wouldn't work at all for Giles," she commented.

Marlena spoke up.

"It reacts to magical power," she told them, "the stronger the magic users _arête_, the clearer the image is."

Willow tore her gaze from the swirling image and frowned questioningly at Marlena.

"_Arête?_" she asked puzzled.

Marlena nodded.

"_Arête_ is the measure of a magic users power. It's their connection to the weave; the place where all magic resides. The more _arête_ a person possess, the more powerful magic they can perform." she gestured to the swirling design hovering above Willow's hand. "The fact that it's flowing and shining as brightly and smoothly as it is, suggests you must be tremendously gifted, especially given how young you are," she commented appreciatively.

Willow beamed and turned to Alec.

"Did you hear that, Alec? I'm tremendously gifted," she reiterated, her tiny form swelling with pride.

Alec chuckled and stroked the girl's hair.

"No questions about that," he smiled indulgently.

Buffy frowned.

"Hang on, this thing worked for me, too," she tilted her head. "It worked about as well as Giles' old Citroen, but it did work." Giles glared at her as Marlena smiled. "I've never cast any magic before."

"No, but I'm willing to bet that you've had powerful magic cast upon you once or twice. That can leave just enough of an afterglow to get a spark," Marlena replied.

Buffy nodded, remembering Willow's enjoining spell that summoned the Prime Slayer, and more recently the spell of time distortion in the bar that had not only helped her defeat Beth Gul-Abz, but also had saved her brother's life.

Marlena shook her head. "Besides, what makes you think it was reacting to you?" the older woman asked.

Buffy frowned. "The fact that I was holding it in my hand sort of suggested it," she responded dryly.

Marlena frowned and turned to Giles.

"She really doesn't know?" she asked in disbelief.

Giles frowned, not understanding. Marlena threw her hands up in the air.

"What are you people _teaching_ the Slayer? The etiquette of scones and tea?" she demanded.

Giles just took off his glasses and pinched the skin above his nose, sighing.

"Excuse me?" Buffy put in. "What is it that I'm supposed to be clued into here?" she demanded.

Marlena sighed and turned to Buffy.

"The Slayer is not just one woman, Buffy, rather she is like a living collection of all the Slayers that came before her," she explained quietly.

Buffy's eyes bulged out of her head in shock.

"Come again?" she demanded breathlessly.

Marlena nodded. "To every generation, a Slayer is born. When that Slayer dies, the next one is called, whether that next one is four, fourteen, or forty," she explained. "The strongest traits of the Slayers that came before her become a part of her, infusing her with their strength and stamina, as do their memories and sometimes their magic," she gestured at the stone that Willow held, "hence the stone's reaction to you. Hasn't the Watcher's Council told you that the Slayer gets stronger with every generation?" she demanded incredulously.

Buffy, looking shaken right down to the core of her soul at this notion of containing the spirits of other Slayers within her, just shook her head numbly.

"It's never been brought to my attention that this is so," Giles ventured carefully. "Although, I have to admit, my relationship with the Council has been strained as of late."

Marlena sighed disgustedly.

"Those IDIOTS!" she declared loudly, earning stares from everyone. Marlena reached over and placed a warm hand on Buffy's shoulders.

"I'm so sorry, dear, you were supposed to know. I can't even begin to fathom what the Watcher's Council was thinking by not telling you any of this," she sighed and elaborated.

"The Awakened Slayer has all the memories, and the powers, of all the Slayers that came before, along with one or two of their personality traits." She turned to address the group.

"This is what Vlad is seeking so desperately, a Slayer who possesses enough of his lost love's memories and feelings to qualify as his Elisabeta reincarnated, but they're all buried deep in the Slayer's soul, like in a safety deposit box." She gave Buffy a sympathetic look. "Dealing with just one lifetime of memories can be brutal, dealing with several upon several can be downright excruciating, so the powers remain dormant in the Slayer's subconscious, until at or about her eighteenth birthday. Then the Council administers the Cruciamentum."

"That was done," Giles chimed in.

Marlena snorted.

"It's an outdated exercise in cruelty, it should have never survived past the dark ages," she bit out.

Giles nodded, remembering telling Quentin the very same thing. Marlena resumed.

"In any case, the Slayer is stripped of her powers and forced to fight a powerful vampire in adverse circumstances. Then, upon succeeding, the Council performs the ritual of Awakening and then the Slayer is suffused with the power and memories of all the Slayers that came before her." She shook her head in bewilderment. "I don't understand what went wrong."

"This ritual was never performed," Giles replied. "Buffy killed the vampire on her eighteenth birthday, without her powers, and all she received was 'Good show, well done, girl' from the Council." He smirked slightly. "I also got fired."

Marlena shot him an inquiring look.

"On what grounds?" she demanded.

"I revealed what had been happening to her in regards to her loss of power and then assisted her against the vampire, who had killed two other Watchers, turning one of them," he explained.

Marlene's eyes narrowed to slits.

"They fired you… for that?" she demanded quietly.

"Yes," Giles added cautiously, unclear as to the ex-Slayers redoubled fury.

"Are they INSANE?" she yelled. "You should have been PROMOTED, not fired!" she cried.

Buffy looked up in shock.

"What?" she asked.


	21. Chapter 18 Lies Men Tell Part 2

"Are they INSANE

"Are they INSANE?" she yelled. "You should have been PROMOTED, not fired!" she cried.

Buffy looked up in shock.

"What?" she asked.

Marlena calmed down with a visible effort.

"The Watcher is supposed to strip the Slayer of her power, this is true, to make sure the poor girl can stand on her own two feet, so to speak," she explained, "but it's not supposed to be a secret!" she exclaimed. "That would be a complete violation of the Slayer's trust by her Watcher. Their bond of trust would be shattered!"

Buffy nodded, remembering when Giles had revealed the cause of her weakness, and that she'd threatened to kill him if he tried to come within five feet of her.

"It almost did," she commented quietly.

Giles sent her an aching look, it had not been a pleasant experience for him either.

Marlena growled in frustration.

"I don't believe this. I suppose they told you that you _weren't_ supposed to fight by the Slayer's side, right?" she demanded turning to Giles.

He nodded and Marlena sighed in disgust.

"That is a complete perversion of the Watcher's Council's original code of rules. During the Cruciamentum, the Slayer's Watcher is _supposed_ to fight along his or her charge. It's meant to be an exercise in trust, to bring the Watcher and Slayer closer together." She shook her head in exasperation. "How could things have gotten so twisted since my time?"

"Dad? Have there been any mention in any of the Watcher Diaries about this 'Awakening ritual?' " Alec asked, suddenly jerking his head up from his reveries and catching Anya peering at him from out of the corner of her eye . _What did she see?_.

Giles shook his head, oblivious to the exchanged glances.

"Not in the ones I was sent," he replied.

Xander snorted. "Yeah, because that would put a serious crimp in their 'Conspiracy O' Silence' regarding the Slayer," he commented bitterly, then looked up at Giles. "Your office buddies are real bastards," he stated simply.

Giles nodded very slowly.

"I'm beginning to see that," he whispered, his voice soft and dangerous.

Alec turned back to Marlena.

"There's no record of the Awakening being performed after the eleventh century, just after you died," he told the older woman.

Marlena seethed. Alec's eyes suddenly widened, a horrible thought occurring to him.

"Marlena? How long did the average Slayer live? I mean, back in your time?" he demanded.

Everyone looked up at him; there was something in his tone that suggested very dire things. Marlena frowned and shrugged, puzzled by the vehemence in his voice.

"Well, slaying is obviously a very dangerous profession, but with the right training and a little luck, a Slayer could live easily into her seventies or older," she explained. "I myself am the ripe old age of fifty-six, at least I was until I died and stopped aging."

Alec just sank back against Willow, pale as a ghost.

"You look good for your age," Xander put in with a grin.

"No MILF jokes please," Buffy commented.

"Thanks but I got enough of that with your mom during that whole 'love spell gone awry' thing."

"What thing with my mom? I don't remember-"

"The lifespan of a Slayer is now thirty at best," Giles commented quietly interrupting the pair.

Marlena whipped her head around in shock. "What?! How?" she demanded.

"Because the ritual of Awakening hasn't been performed since your time, Marlena," Buffy finally spoke, her voice broken.

Marlena sagged against the RV, stunned.

"That ritual is vital to the Slayer's survival. It supplies information about times past, it imparts talents and abilities of the Slayers before her, and it fortifies her mind and heart against corruption," Marlena whispered. "Without these powers, any vampire with basic level mind control can-"

"Can kill a Slayer," Buffy finished, remembering Kendra's death at Drusilla's hands and her own at the Master's. The Council had a _lot_ to answer for.

"You said the Awakening fortifies the Slayer's mind and heart against corruption?" Willow asked. Marlena nodded. "What did you mean by that?"

"Well, becoming essentially a living weapon with the burden of defending the entire world from the forces of darkness is a heavy one to bear, it can also be terribly isolating, since the Slayer is usually unwilling to put any innocent people at risk with her presence."

Buffy snorted slightly. "Yeah, it's a lonely gig," she whispered softly.

Alec put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.

"Not anymore, sis," he replied fervently.

She smiled softly up at him and placed a hand over his.

Marlena gestured to the two.

"See? This is rare. I mean, it's great, don't get me wrong, but usually the Slayer operates alone. Cut off from the world, and without her mind and heart supernaturally fortified," Marlena shook her head, "it would be incredibly damaging."

Buffy looked up at her.

"Faith," she responded quietly.

Eyes widened in comprehension as Marlena frowned.

"And Faith is?"

"Another Slayer, one that went psycho and began killing a lot of people," Buffy replied.

Marlena's pale face grew a little paler.

"_Two_ Slayers?" she breathed before shaking her head. "That's not possible."

Alec spoke up. "Buffy died, just like you said, against a master vampire with mind control. But Xander here," he gestured to the younger man, "was able to resuscitate her. But for a while, she had died."

"Thus activating the next Slayer," Marlena sighed, putting a hand to her head.

"Kendra," Buffy told her. "She died, too, killed by another vampire with Jedi mindtricks."

Marlena snorted and shook her head in disbelief.

"Anyone notice a trend?" Alec asked mirthlessly. People nodded, Buffy continued to speak.

"After Kendra died, Faith was called. At first, things were okay, but she became-"

"Bitter?" Marlena finished, not looking up, her hand still over her eyes. "Full of rage and isolated?"

Buffy nodded. "Yeah, it got pretty bad. I wound up stabbing her and putting her into a coma, she wound up taking over my body and nearly killing me."

Marlena just hung her head.

"Slayer versus Slayer. Such a thing has not occurred since the Great Fire!" Marlena exclaimed looking pale.

"Julianna: the hand of the Devil," Giles breathed.

"Okay, the adults look wigged and that's just not cool," Buffy commented worriedly.

"In 1666, there was a great fire in London - most of the city was destroyed. The cause of the fire is commonly believed to be a bakery fire. What isn't common knowledge is that the bakery was a vampire haven and the fire… was set by a Slayer."

"Julianna?" Buffy asked.

Marlena nodded. "Yes, Julianna had fallen in with a powerful vampire who was waging war against his progeny, believing that the vampire made a better ally against fighting other vampires than the Watcher's Council."

"Suddenly having a tough time arguing with that," Xander put in bitterly.

Marlena nodded and continued. "There was a lot of collateral damage at one point, Julianna died and was revived, which triggered the creation of a new Slayer - Miranda. Miranda was… young and inexperienced and she too fell in with vampires, in this instance though, it was with the vampiric progeny that Julianna's master was trying to destroy."

"The Third All-Slayer's War," Giles whispered.

Buffy whipped her head around. "What do you mean 'third'? How many times have Slayers gone through the nightmare Faith and I did?"

"More than once," Marlena answered. "Whenever there are two Slayers, it always ends in a catastrophe; in this case, the Great Fire of London that wiped out twenty thousand homes and countless lives. Because of her part in the fire, her servitude to a vampire, and the year, 1666, Julianna became known as-"

"-the hand of the Devil," Buffy finished grimly.

"What was the name of the vampire she served?" Anya asked.

"I don't know, most of the records of that period were destroyed, I only know the name of the vampire progeny's leader, the offspring Julianna's master was trying to destroy - Heinrich Joseph Nest."

"My god," Giles breathed.

"Stop doing that!" Buffy cried out. "I hate it when you get all freaked out like that! Stiff upper lip, Giles!"

He turned to her slowly. "Heinrich Joseph Nest was the birth name of the vampire that you knew as 'The Master'."

"Oh…" was all Buffy said before sagging backwards with her mouth hanging open.

"So, the Master's sire wanted him dead," Alec mused silently. "Well, I can't fault him for that." He turned to his sister. "We should ask Angel about it."

Buffy looked up, still reeling from all the revelations. "Huh? Why?"

"According to the Watcher records I found, regarding the Order of Aurelius, The Master, Joseph, sired Darla, who sired Angel. Now, all of the literature I'd read always assumed that the Master was the founder of the Order."

"What you read was incorrect, son," Giles put in. "The order was founded by the 12th century prophet, Aurelius. The Master wasn't sired until the 15th century, according to my research."

"Wait a minute, no, that can't be right," Buffy put in.

'What do you mean?"

"Well, Angel told me about the first time he'd met the Master," Buffy stuttered only a little at the name. Clearly she was still frightened of the monster that had murdered her. "He said that the explaination Darla had given him regarding why he looked all freaky-deaky was that he was really old, 'Grown past the curse of human features' or something."

"Okay, so, what?" Alec asked.

"So, Angel told me that Darla said his face was already all batty when he sired her back in sixteen-something."

"I'm lost," Xander put in.

Willow snapped her fingers in comprehension. "Holy cats, I get it! The Master must've been the one that told Darla that he looked the way he did because he was old, but he was only two hundred when he sired her and he _already_ looked like that. Angel is over two hundred and he still looks human."

"And cute," Anya put in.

Xander glared at her as Alec leaned in.

"So, either the Master was way, way older than six hundred, or he lied to Darla about the cause of his disfiguration."

"Right, so which one is it?"

"I can answer that," a voice called out.

Everyone turned to see Faith coming down out of the camper.

"Hey, I thought you were sleeping," Buffy asked.

"Couldn't sleep. Too much talking. Heard most of what's been going on out here," the dark-haired Slayer answered. "Nice to know we're not the first Slayers to screw up."

"Misery loves company," Xander commented.

"Hello, Faith," Marlena smiled warmly at the young woman.

Faith smiled and nodded, she still wasn't totally comfortable meeting new people, especially people that had been clued in to the sins of her past, but she persevered.

"When Abby, my Watcher, and I were hunting Kakistos, the cloven-hooved bastard that killed her, Abby told me that he looked that way because he'd been cursed."

Giles frowned. "The official explanation has always been that deformities in vampires are often the result of extreme old age."

"Yeah, well, would you want to broadcast to the world that somebody laid a mystical smackdown on your undead ass and turned you all fugly?"

"Good point."

"Okay, so, if Kakistos was cursed to look like that, maybe the Master was, too?" Willow said.

"A distinct possibility," Giles commented.

"Pop Quiz: who do we know that's good with curses?" Alec asked sourly.

"Gypsies," Buffy answered without hesitating.

"And who do we know that's good with gypsy magic and has a bat fetish?"

The group fell deathly silent for a moment before Xander found his voice and summarized the entire group's feelings.

"You gotta be friggin kidding me!"

"Dracula. Dracula cursed the Master, Dracula was the Master's sire, and Dracula was Julianna's master in London," Alec said with finality.

"That's a hell of a leap, bro," Buffy commented.

"It is, and he's also right," another voice called out.

Everyone turned to see Angel sitting in the doorway of the RV, safe from the rays of the rising sun.

"That would make Dracula your great-grandsire wouldn't it, Angel?" Buffy asked quietly.

"Yes, that's correct."

"And you didn't mention this because?"

"You didn't need to know."

Buffy leapt to her feet and stalked over to him.

"I think the fact that you are the offspring of the vampire that feasted on me a few months ago, and now seems to be pulling our collective strings, qualifies as 'need to know'!"

Angel looked up at Buffy from his seat on the RV's floor.

"We all have our secrets," he said simply.

"Wait a minute, something's off," Alec interrupted. "Angel, when was Darla turned?"

"Year of our lord, sixteen hundred and nine," the vampire replied mirthlessly.

"All right, so, at that point, the Master was about two hundred years old, we've got that much. That would have put him as being turned by Dracula around fourteen-oh-nine or so."

"So, what's the problem?" Buffy asked.

"So, Vlad Dracul wasn't even born until fourteen-thirty-one. Every history book on the planet puts his birth around then - thirty years before he could have possibly sired any vampires, he wasn't even a vampire when the Master was turned."

"Dracula's older than that," Angel replied calmly.

"But history-"

"-is wrong. The person known as Vlad the Impaler was born in the early fifteenth century, but Dracula the vampire is a lot older."

"What are you saying, that Vlad the Impaler, that Dracula isn't really... Dracula?" Alec asked, completely lost.

"I'm saying that my great grandsire, the vampire that you all know as 'Dracula', is in fact a lot older than the Vlad the Impaler of history. Whether or not he actually was the same person or not, I have no idea."

"He was," Marlena said quietly. Everyone turned to face her, as she explained, "Vlad Dracul was the name of Vlad the Impaler's father: he came from the Order of the Dragon, a title granted to him in fourteen-thirty-one by a German emperor."

"So what?" Xander asked.

"So, it was a lie: 'Vlad Dracul', 'Vlad the Impaler', and 'Dracula' are all the same person - a vampire."

"I think I speak for everyone when I say 'Huh'?!" Buffy commented.

"Dracula founded his own mortal family bloodline and then masqueraded as the first born male of every generation: he has played the part of his own father and son since the bloodline was established."

"So you're saying..."

"…that there has only ever been one Vlad Tepes, one Dracul, son of the dragon, and it's him."

"That bloodline was founded by Thocomerius of Wallachia in Twelve-Ninety A.D," Giles commented softly. "If that was in fact Dracula himself, that would put him at over nearly eight hundred years old, perfectly old enough to sire Joseph Heinrich Nest in the fifteenth century."

"And you may be assured that Dracula existed long before he came up with the idea of founding his own mortal bloodline to hide amongst. A plan like that doesn't just happen overnight, it would take years to lay the foundations of such a far-reaching scheme, even with the Romany helping."

Angel jerked his head up. "What?"

"I did say that Vlad founded a _mortal_ bloodline - who did you think supplied the mortals?"

"So, the Romany are Vlad's descendants? That explains their loyalty."

"And their power. Magic tends to be passed on through blood," Willow added.

Marlena smiled at the red-haired witch. "That's right, Willow, is that how you inherited your talent for magic?"

Surprisingly, far from looking pleased at the praise, Willow instead seemed to withdraw within herself, pulling away from Alec and looking away.

"No."

"Willow and her mother had sort of a falling out a few years back, after she tried to burn her alive because of an evil demon, it's a long story."

"My apologies for reopening old wounds, young one," Marlena said sympathetically.

Willow didn't answer, instead, she pressed herself back against Alec and he wrapped her arms around her tightly.

"You know, I have that ring Dracula gave Spike," Buffy commented. "Could we use that to determine how old he actually is?"

Willow nodded enthusiastically. "Absolutely, there's a spell-"

"I'm sorry, Willow, but I can't permit any casting of magic on the premises; the temptation to tap into the node here would prove too great for any spellcaster, and if that amount of power were to be misused, the results would be catastrophic."

"Oh. Yeah, catastrophic would be bad," the young witch agreed reluctantly. _I'd be careful,_ Willow thought to herself angrily, frustrated that she was being treated like a rank amateur.

"We're getting off topic," Giles interjected. "Whatever or whoever Dracula may be, we need to focus on my former colleagues duplicity. If the Council has engaged in activities that endanger the life of the Slayer, then those must be addressed first and foremost."

Marlena nodded, acknowledging the necessity for a change in topic. "Yes, of course, you're quite right, Rupert," she admitted. "Through their ignorance, the Council has not only violated the laws of the Powers That Be with two Slayers, but they've managed to nearly get them _both_ killed," Marlena sighed disgustedly. "Is it any wonder that the Hellmouth has picked now to arise from its realm?" She sighed once more, got up, and looked at Buffy with a newfound respect. "You must be a very formidable young woman to have endured all that you have, especially considering the Watchers' grievous errors," she complimented her.

Buffy smiled a little at this.

"Yeah, well, I've never played by the rules very well," she offered.

Marlena snorted gently.

"I imagine not, but be that as it may, without the Awakening, you, and every Slayer since myself, has been fighting the forces of darkness with both hands tied behind their backs, so to speak."

Willow spoke up.

"I don't get it, if the Awakening is supposed to make the Slayer into Supergirl, why wouldn't the Watchers perform it since you died?" she asked, pointing the question at Marlena.

"Control," Alec replied quietly. All eyes turned to him. He looked up at Marlena. "Did you ever get any orders from the Council?" he asked.

Marlena shook her head.

"No, never. The Council was always there to guide and advise, never enslave," she replied.

Alec nodded. "That's it then."

Xander looked confused.

"Okay, somewhere between point A and point Z, you lost me," he commented.

Alec leaned forward to address the group.

"It's very simple," he began. Turning to Marlena, he continued. "You said that the Slayer, after she undergoes the Awakening, has access to all the knowledge possessed by the Slayers that came before her."

Marlena nodded.

"Yes, that way the collective experience wasn't lost with the Slayer's death," she explained.

Alec nodded.

"So, after the transformation, does the Watcher stay with the Slayer?"

Marlena shrugged.

"Usually. By then, especially right after the Cruciamentum, Watcher and Slayer have bonded in such a way that they are as kin." She smiled slightly. "My own Watcher, Marius, was the one that introduced me to the Order of Saint Michael." Her smile became sad. "He went back to England and died later that year; I miss that old man."

Buffy gave her a sympathetic look as Alec continued.

"So, there it is, your Watcher stayed with you because he _chose_ to, not because he _had_ to."

Giles' eyes lit up in understanding.

"Marlena no longer required a Watcher after Awakening," he breathed. "Possessing the knowledge of all the past Slayers, such a position would be rendered obsolete."

Alec nodded.

"I think someone along the line figured that out and decided to make sure that such circumstances didn't arise again," he looked up at Marlena. "I'm willing to bet, after your death the Watcher's Council began to make some pretty drastic reformations. The Awakened Slayer was probably far too precious a commodity to be allowed to join 'futile' crusades with renegade holy warriors and get herself killed fighting things like Hellmouths," he commented. "So, rather than allowing the Slayer that opportunity to receive the power of the Awakening-"

"-they kept them vulnerable and dependent," Marlena finished, her face now an ashen gray. "With only her own lifetime of experience to rely on, the Slayer would become dependent on her Watcher throughout her career, therefore assuring the Watcher's Council's continued existence." She sighed and shook her head in dismay. "They've been sealing these poor girls' fates, keeping them dependent and shrouded in ignorance."

"And once the Awakening ritual was eradicated, the death toll for Slayers skyrocketed," Alec finished, "which isn't that big of a deal for the Council, since, as one Slayer dies…"

"…so is the next one called," Buffy finished in a dead voice.

She looked up at her brother, her face tight with horror.

"An inexhaustible source of warriors to throw against the forces of darkness," Alec concluded. "Warriors, who would forever be dependent on the Watcher's Council. An organization that had no compunctions about sending unprepared girls to die, all the while firmly convinced of their own self-righteousness while assuring their organization's continued survival." Alec finished with a grim look.

"But now that's changed," he gestured to Buffy. "She has defied the Council, as has her Watcher, and they've both completely disregarded the Council completely."

Marlena's eyes widened.

"They just let her go?" she asked amazing.

Buffy shook her head.

"Not exactly. After Giles was disbarred, they sent another Watcher, Wesley," Buffy smiled slightly, remembering the cowardly Watcher. "From what Angel's told me, Wesley's been disbarred as well, for helping Giles and I fight against the Mayor, rather than hunting down Faith and dragging her back to England for the Council to be tried."

Marlena snorted. "In other words, for doing the right thing," she bit out disgustedly.

"Marlena? Does the hospital have a web page?" Willow asked suddenly.

Marlena frowned.

"Of course it does, how else could we let people know that-" she froze, understanding dawning.

"There's no reference of the Grigori Estate anywhere on the net," Alec informed her. "The Council has somehow managed to erase every reference to it from public record, reducing it to urban lore." The half-demon sent Willow a grim look.

"Why?" Xander asked, puzzled.

"Because they don't want Slayers having a place they can turn to if things get too rough," Buffy answered. "If the Council offered us alternative sources of information and support, their own power over us would slip from 'triple latte' to 'decaffeinated," she looked up at Giles. "We've been played."

Giles nodded slowly.

"Travers has a lot to answer for," the older man growled.

Marlena got to her feet.

"I always wondered why no other Slayers came here," she puzzled aloud.

"The fact that this place is billed as a demonic lunatic asylum may have something to do with that," Willow chimed in, gently taking Alec's hand. "Some seriously bad PR."

"Courtesy of the Watcher's Council," Alec added. He turned to Giles. "At least we know why we couldn't get any pertinent information from the Diaries."

Giles nodded thoughtfully.

"Travers would have made sure that any reference to Marlena Esperanza or her awakening would be erased," he sighed and shook his head. "The Watchers were meant to aid the Chosen One against the forces of darkness, by arming her with knowledge. Now to discover after all this time we've been sabotaging their efforts…" Giles looked down, Buffy walked over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"_They_ have been sabotaging, not _you_" she reassured him firmly.

Giles looked up and nodded, placing a hand over the Slayer's, squeezing it tightly. Buffy nodded and turned, grinning.

"Well, at least we know why I've had such a thing for vampires," she gestured to the older ex-Slayer. "Your contribution, I suppose?"

Marlena grinned.

"Perhaps," she replied. "It should be interesting to see what the next Slayer will inherit from you," she observed wryly.

Buffy frowned.

"Wouldn't that have been Kendra?" she asked.

Marlena shook her head.

"No, until you have Awakened, your contribution, just as every contribution from all the Slayers since myself, is held in limbo," she smiled at Buffy. "I guess, in a way, the most recent person to influence your personality would be me."

Buffy grinned. "I guess in a way, that makes you a mom to me," she smiled.

Marlena mirrored the reaction.

"Well, an aunt anyhow, and as an aunt, I can tell you right now," she placed warm hands on Buffy's shoulders, "that no one could be more proud of their niece, than I am of you."

She gathered the blonde Slayer into a tight embrace; Buffy smiled and held the older woman tightly. Alec smiled wryly as they parted.

"Does this mean you're my aunt as well? After all," he gestured to Giles, "he's my father, and he has a father's love for Buffy, which makes her my sister, in a way."

Marlena smiled at the dark youth and walked over to him.

"I'd be honored to call such a dedicated and devoted young man my nephew," she smiled and wrapped her arms around him.

Alec, who had never known a mother's love, smiled and held the older woman tightly.

"Awwww…" Willow cooed.

Alec smiled and released Marlena. He smiled at Willow and placed a kiss on her head. Buffy came over to stand beside him with Giles behind her. Marlena regarded them all.

"Brother and sister, with a loving father watching over them both, just as they watch over each other." She smiled, gesturing to the three of them. "_This_ was what the Watcher's Council was supposed to supply to the Slayers. A sense of love, and of family," she smiled warmly at them and gestured at Alec.

"There's great power in you, young man," she observed.

Alec shrugged.

"Power is what you make of it, I've found, besides Buffy is the Chosen One, not I," he replied.

Marlena shook her head. "We are all chosen for something, young man, and we can either deny that destiny or embrace it, for good or ill. But from what I see, you will be as much of a force in the world as your sister." She smiled slightly as Buffy regarded her brother with deep affection.

"It's Alec the Vampire Slayer," she quipped.

He smiled as she kissed his face affectionately. Marlena nodded.

"That's not an altogether inaccurate analogy, Buffy," she gestured to Alec. "His resonance echoes loud and strong, just as yours does. The only difference being, his is a thing of darkness, whereas yours is of light. I sense he is meant for great things just as you are, Buffy," she smiled, looking up at Giles. "You must be a very proud father to have had a hand in making such a son."

Giles nodded.

"I am," he replied, his voice thick with paternal pride.

Marlena smiled at him.

"You also, have a strong resonance Rupert Giles, your eyes shine with a clear sense of destiny. Your path is far from concluded and you will accomplish many great things."

Giles blushed slightly at the praise. Marlena smiled and regarded Willow, who had cozyed up to Alec.

"As for you, young spell-weaver…" Willow looked up at her. "…I tell you this now. There are people who walk the well lit path," she looked at Buffy, who grinned, "and those who prefer the sheltering comfort of dark," she shifted her gaze at Alec, who smiled slightly, inclining his head, before Marlena turned back to Willow, "but some chosen few bring with them their own light, enriching both the lives of walkers of day and nighttime wanderers."

She pointed at Willow.

"You, my dear, are such a light bearer, and thus enrich the lives of all those around you."

Willow smiled, deeply touched. Alec kissed her head softly as the young witch wrapped her arms around his waist, squeezing him tightly.

"What about me?" Xander piped up, bounding over to the group of friends.

Marlena's face broke into a wide grin.

"You, young man, are that which fuels the fires of nobility, you and yours are laughter, joy, simplicity, the very things that a Slayer fights to protect. You must never lose your love of life, Alexander Harris, for it will be both your salvation and the salvation of those around you."

Xander grinned and threw an arm around Anya.

"You hear that, honey? I'm going to be the salvation of everybody!" He told her, his chest swelling with pride.

Anya rolled his eyes as Marlena laughed and pointed at Anya.

"And you, my dear, will have to make sure that his heart remains as big as his mouth," she informed the ex-demon.

Anya smiled and patted Xander's chest.

"Yes, he has all kind of big parts," Anya assured her, "he's got a big mouth, a big heart, and you should see his-"

"Anya!" Xander cried.

Marlena threw her head back and laughed, a sound of pure life and gaiety, as Xander blushed furiously and those in the group exchanged wry looks.

Buffy, chuckling, turned back to Marlena. "So, what about this weird design thingy? How do we figure it out?"

Marlena gave her a sympathetic look.

"Don't ask me to try and unravel one of Sasha's messages. Suffice it to say, I've learned that his predictions are rarely inaccurate." She frowned, thinking. "I'll try to talk to him, meanwhile, I imagine the lot of you are fairly fatigued."

She turned her head and pointed. Buffy and Giles turned to look at Alec and Willow curled up together, resting against the side of the RV, sound asleep. Buffy smiled and yawned.

"Yeah, I'm wiped. Let's go find a nice rest stop somewhere and call it a day. We can try to puzzle out Sasha's crypt-o-gram later."

Smiling, she turned back to Marlena and reached to give her a tight hug.

"Thank you so much," she whispered.

Marlena smiled and released the girl, stroking her face affectionately.

"You are more than welcome, child." Then she smiled teasingly. "Do you still believe I don't have any right to the title of 'Slayer'?"

Buffy blushed, embarrassed by her earlier harsh words.

"Trust me, Marlena, you're _all_ Slayer; no 'ex' about it," she replied.

Marlena grinned.

"If you have any other problems, please don't hesitate to give me a chant. Remember," she leveled a finger at the Slayer, "you are not alone. You are Buffy Summers, yes, but you are also the Slayer and every Slayer that has come since. When the time is right, they will come to your aid."

Buffy nodded, smiling as she turned and headed up the stairs leading into the RV. Giles came over to Marlena.

"Thank you for everything, Marlena. You've made things much clearer for us all."

Marlena smiled and placed a warm kiss on Giles' cheek, he blushed as Xander whooped, waking up Alec and Willow.

"Check out the G-man, smooth with the ladies!" he laughed.

Giles cleared his throat and, sending Marlena a smile, followed Buffy into the mobile home. Xander and Anya said their goodbyes, and Willow and Alec were following when Marlena put a restraining hand on Alec's shoulder.

"A moment, please."

Alec turned and frowned, then gestured to Willow to go on ahead. She did so and Alec regarded the older woman.

"What's up?" he asked.

Marlena smiled a secret smile at him.

"You love her, do you not?" she asked.

Alec looked up at where Willow had been.

"Willow? Yeah. More than I thought was ever possible."

Marlena shook her head, smiling.

"Not Willow, though this, too, is true. I was referring to the Key, the one called Dawn."

Alec's eyes bulged in surprise.

"What are you ta-"

Marlena held up a hand silencing him.

"Know this, Alec Giles, this love you hold for Dawn is not sinful nor does it betray the love you hold for Willow in any way. One you love with your heart, the other you love with your soul, and thus, these two loves shall save all hearts and all souls," she told him.

Alec shook his head. "I don't understand," he told her.

Marlena smiled and stroked his hair affectionately.

"You will, nephew, now go. Your destiny calls, and it is a _loud_ summons," she grinned as she gave the dark young man a hug and a kiss on the cheek, before sending him on his way.

The door closed and the RV pulled away from the estate. Alec sat next to Willow on their bed.

"What was that all about?" she asked curiously.

Alec opened his mouth… and, to his own surprise, closed it again. There was no reason not to tell her, Willow had certainly proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was completely secure in the knowledge of his love for her. And yet, he felt a strangely compelling reluctance to do so. He turned to look at Dawn, who was awake and currently griping with Buffy about something inane before turning back to Willow.

"Aunty stuff," he said at last.

Willow smiled and kissed him.

"Okay, well, good, you need a strong maternal presence in your life," she grinned at him, "aside from me."

Alec snorted. "Unless I have a _serious_ Oedipus complex, I don't think I regard you as a mother figure in my life, lover."

Willow grinned and nuzzled against his chest. He held her and gently drifted off to sleep.

As the RV pulled away, Marlena lightly fingered the lock of hair she'd cut from Alec's head with her fingernails; a minor enchantment, but a useful one. She whispered a few words over the dark strands and they quickly dissolved into a tiny pool of blackness. Marlena leaned over it, peering intently. Suddenly, a tiny tendril lashed out from the inky substance and slashed her across the cheek. The white-haired Slayer cried out and cast the substance to the ground, it hissed and bubbled as it began to consume the earth beneath.

Lightly, she figured the wound on her check, and the large, still not quite healed wound on her shoulder, it had turned a pale violet color with black veins branching out into the rest of her shoulder and arm, like a virulent infection.

She winced slightly and lifted her head, addressing the direction the RV had gone.

"Oh, Cain, after so long a time, does your resurrection symbolize your redemption, or shall you only attempt to finish what you started with the conquest of Paradise?"

Turning, she walked away, leaving the questions to be answered by the dark and the silence.

In dreams and in silence, Anya spoke the words and waited.

"What have you to report, Anyanka?" said the spectral dream-figure of D'Hoffryn.

"You were right, we have to kill him," she said simply.

D'Hoffryn took a few minutes to put that statement into its proper context; Anya's rather direct method of conversation sometimes took a little getting used to.

"Then you know what must be done," the elder demon replied.

Anya sighed and in the waking world, she may have sighed in her sleep. "Yeah, I do. Post the bounty and contact the Order of Taraka - Alec Giles has to die."

"And his friends?"

"You know the deal, D'Hoffryn, Xander is off limits." She looked down for a minute, took a deep breath and looked up again. "The others… whatever."

"As you say then, Anyanka."

With that, D'Hoffryn departed from the dream leaving her alone with her treachery.

A treachery, however, that even in the land of dreams, had not gone unnoticed by a pair of cold, cruel eyes.

_'Whatever', little demon?_

We shall see!


	22. Chapter 19 The City That Never Sleeps

Dawn was bored. They had left the Estate and had pulled into the rest stop right around sunrise; almost everyone had gone to bed. Pulling on her shoes, she opened the door and headed out into the brisk early morning air. Shivering slightly, she zipped up her fleece jacket and blew hot breath onto her hands.

"Nippy out isn't it?" a voice called down from above.

Dawn looked up and saw Alec sitting cross-legged on the roof of the RV peering down at her curiously, a small smile gracing his lips. Dawn smiled happily.

"Alec! What are you doing up there?" she asked.

Alec shrugged and gestured to the rapidly paling sky. The sun was just about to come up.

"Watching the sunrise. Want to come join me?" he asked.

Dawn nodded enthusiastically. "Uh-huh," she smiled up at him.

Alec smiled and, carefully dangling off the roof of the RV, extended a hand, easily hauling the girl up off her feet.

"Whoa!" she squealed in delight as she was picked up off the ground and brought to rest before the still-seated Alec. The young man grinned.

"Light as a feather," he smiled wryly at her.

Dawn blushed. "Yeah, well, tell that to Mom. Every time I order a Big Mac at McDonald's she looks at me like I'm about to eat my own body weight," she quipped.

Alec chuckled appreciatively at the younger girl's wit. He pointed towards the horizon.

"Look," he whispered breathlessly.

Dawn turned, her back to him, and gasped as the first rays of the morning sun exploded over the horizon. Dawn leaned back, soaking in the rays of light. Alec smiled and gently opened his arms, letting the young woman come to rest against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, his fingers entwining with hers. The girl opened her eyes and looked down at their joined hands in pleasant astonishment, then closed her eyes and made a long sound of utter contentment, resting against his chest. He smiled in turn and rested his face against her head.

"Alec?" Dawn whispered quietly. She still hadn't gotten used to the idea of calling him Alec.

"Mmm?" he replied quietly.

"Are you scared? I mean, about fighting the Hellmouth and all that?" she asked him.

He smiled and stroked her hair affectionately.

"Not anymore," he whispered back to her.

Dawn felt her heart just about burst at the sheer poignancy behind his words. Her lower lip trembled and she quickly turned to him, and, without saying anything, leaned over and placed a long, lingering kiss on his cheek.

Alec closed his eyes as he felt something like a great light flooding his body.

_Must be the sunlight,_ he said to himself, unconvincingly. When Dawn finally pulled away, he smiled at her, gently touching his cheek.

"What was that for?" he asked gently.

"That was for being my hero, Alec," she replied quietly, looking up into his dark eyes, her voice thick with emotion. "For making me feel safe and feel like everything's going to be all right."

Alec closed his eyes, her words like sunlight upon melting ice.

"You're welcome," he whispered quietly.

Smiling, he opened his arms for her. She turned and laid back against his chest, smiling contently. He kissed her head as she smiled warmly at him. Together they watched the approaching sunrise and drank it in.

Dawn gently touched her lips.

_Not bad for a first kiss,_ she thought to herself, her heart beating double-time. Nestling against Alec, she went back to gazing at the coming dawn.

"Okay, so, Wills, you said you saw something like this before?" Buffy asked from her seat upon Spike's lap.

The redheaded witch nodded from her own perch upon Alec's lap, she was busy peering at the writhing diagram. Alec smiled as he made himself busy brushing her hair - a little indulgence he found she responded very well to and it helped her think sometimes.

"Yeah, I just can't place where," she frowned at it, her lower lip jutting out in frustration.

"You know, that thing looks kinda like that poster in Mr. Gaffney's math class," Dawn commented.

Willow's eyes widened as a thunderbolt of understanding blew through her.

"OF COURSE!" she cried out, leaping from Alec's lap, sending him tumbling against the side of bed. Willow raced to the computer, hitting keys in rapid succession. "_That's_ where I saw it before!" she squealed in delight.

Buffy came up behind her.

"My sister's junior high school math class?" she asked puzzled.

Willow shook her head excitedly.

"No, in Miss Calendar's class!" she replied as she turned the screen to Buffy.

Sure enough, there was a similar, though far less complex, design displayed in brilliant shades of red, blue, and yellow.

Buffy frowned. "Okay, what is it?" she asked.

"It's a fractal," Willow replied. "This one is called 'the Mandelbrot set,' " she explained hurriedly.

Buffy was still frowning. "Still not following you, Wills."

"A fractal is a graphical representation of a mathematical function," the witch elaborated, slipping into lecture mode. "They're sometimes used in programming. Miss Calendar once suggested that instead of mathematical formulas and functions, that maybe _magical_ formulas and functions could be represented by a fractal."

Faith frowned at the ghostly fractal.

"So, this thing is a spell? What is it, 'Abracadabra, _poof_, I'm a floating Rubix cube'?" Faith asked incredulously.

Buffy looked up at her and smirked. She had confided to Faith what Marlena had revealed to her regarding the Slayers and their vulnerability to insanity due to the absence of the Awakening ritual, and in doing so had freed both herself and Faith from the burden of guilt and shame from the events of the past years. While they were not close by any stretch of the imagination, they were, at least, on the right path.

Willow nodded as Buffy turned her attention back to ghostly apparition.

"Yes, but it's also a program," Willow explained. "Once we decipher it, we can run it like any other program and the spell should activate," she looked up at Buffy, "at least, that's how most technomantic magic works, anyhow."

The blond Slayer nodded.

"Could this spell tell us where the Everstone is?" she asked.

Willow nodded and replied, "It certainly _looks_ complicated enough to contain a set of coordinates."

"It's worse than a bloody triple-A map! How are we supposed to make heads or tails out of it?" Spike asked, snorting.

The redhead frowned.

"I don't have the foggiest idea. Like I said, I only heard Miss Calendar talk about it once," she responded despondently.

"Well, then we need to talk to the people who would most likely know about these," Angel put forth quietly.

Buffy turned to frown at him, puzzled.

"You mean other technopagans?" she asked.

Angel shook his head.

"I mean other gypsies. Like the ones that attacked us the other day," he replied quietly.

Everyone looked taken aback at the suggestion, Spike laughed humorlessly.

"Has all that hair gel finally soaked into your brain?" he sneered at Angel, finally unable to contain the bitterness and envy he held towards the other. "In case you haven't noticed those people _did_ try to kill us the other day, or have you forgotten 'Little Miss Lightsaber' and her unfortunate accident?"

Angel looked down as Buffy threw a shocked glance at her lover.

"Spike!" she chastised him.

The vampire in question got up angrily from his chair.

"The lot of you want to take pretty-boy's advice and ask the warlocks for help, be my guest. Me? I would prefer NOT to be turned into a pile of ash, thanks," he spat out before jerking the door to the RV open and stormed out, slamming it hard behind him.

There was a stunned silence as Buffy suddenly blinked back tears. Angel growled and headed out the door to follow the raging vampire. He spied Spike stalking away from the RV, hands firmly shoved into his pockets. Angel raced up to him, and slapped a restraining hand on his offspring's shoulder.

"Where the _Hell_ do you get-"

That was as far as he got before Spike spun around, face transformed in rage, and slammed a fist hard into Angel's face. The older vampire flew back as Spike began to pummel him.

"Go to blazes, you stupid, worthless wanker!" he roared, kicking Angel hard in the ribs. "She's mine! You got that?! Mine! She loves me!" He emphasized each word with another kick to the ribs. "You got that? ME! Not you! You took Dru from me, you can't have her!" he growled, slamming a fist across the other's head.

With a roar, Angel's face shifted and he tackled Spike to the ground.

"Okay, Spike, you want to play the jealous lover, I'm game!"

With a growl he slammed a meaty fist into Spike's face. Spike shot his head up to collide with that of the other vampire's with a resounding _crack!_. Angel fell off Spike as the other got to his feet and, with a roar, plowed into Angel, driving him hard against a picnic table. He straightened and slammed another fist into Angel's face.

"What, you think you can come in here all soul-having and brooding and take her from me?" he demanded, decking Angel hard across the chin. "Think you two will have a romp just for old time's sake? Oh, wait, I forgot, you can't, 'cause then you'll turn into an even BIGGER ponce than you already ARE!" He slammed another blow across Angel's head and reared back to smash his skull into paste.

"I didn't come here to get back with Buffy," Angel replied through split and bloody lips.

"Go to Hell, you lying sod!" Spike roared back.

Angel suddenly grabbed Spike's head and slammed a knee high and hard into it. Spike flew back, his hands to his nose, as Angel grabbed his arm and wrenched it behind his back, slamming him hard over the picnic table.

"Been there. Done that, Spikey!" Angel growled out, twisting Spike's arm harder, eliciting a growl of pain from the younger vampire. "You can believe whatever you want to, it's obvious you don't care about what's really going on and what isn't, but I'm telling you, I'm not here for Buffy."

Spike wrenched his head to the side to glare balefully up at him from the picnic table.

"Yeah? What about that touching little scene on the motor home the other night?" he spat out.

Angel released Spike in shock, his face becoming human once more. Spike scrambled away, nursing his shoulder.

"Can you really look me in the eye, mate, and tell me you don't still got warm fuzzy feelings for her?" he demanded, his own face changing back to its mortal visage.

Angel opened his mouth to deny it… and found that he couldn't. Spike just sneered at him.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," he growled turning away.

Angel slammed a hand on his shoulder, pivoting him and slamming him against a stop sign, his arm locked across his throat.

"Spike, you want to play twenty questions, I've got no problem with that." He tightened his grip across Spike's throat, who thrashed and struggled. "But ask yourself this, Spike, do you really love her… or are you just getting even with me for Dru?"

The blond's eyes widened in rage.

"You son of a…" he spat and struggled harder against Angel's arm, who just slammed him against the stop sign again.

"Think about it, Spike. Think long and hard, because if the answer is _'yes'_, that this is all about Dru, then take the time to ask yourself 'Doesn't she deserve better?' " Angel demanded quietly.

Spike snarled at him and spat, "What, like you?"

Angel shook his head.

"No. Like a man she can take out into the daylight. A man that she can grow old with and have children with, a man she can marry and be with, who is of this world, of this time, to walk beside her in that beautiful thing called 'life'." He leaned in closer to regard Spike, who had turned livid, his skin a paler shade of white. "A living, breathing, loving man she could be proud to someday call 'husband'," Angel growled before releasing him.

Spike staggered away, opening his mouth to deny his words, but Angel cut him off.

"Do what you got to do, Spike. Just remember that loving someone means putting their needs before yours, no matter how much it hurts." He leveled a stern gaze at the younger vampire. "I doubt you've ever loved anything that much."

Spike sneered at him.

"Sod off, you bleedin' ponce!" he spat.

Angel just nodded his head.

"That's what I thought," he replied quietly.

Shoving past Spike, he strode back to the RV leaving the younger man with his thoughts.

When Angel entered the trailer, Buffy looked up and rushed over to him.

"Oh God, Angel," she whispered lightly, fingering his battered face. "What happened?" she demanded.

He waved her off.

"Forget it, it's nothing," he replied, "I'm fine."

"Nothing. Hey, no offense, Dead Boy," Xander commented, "but you look like you just went ten rounds with Muhammad Ali."

"I said I'm fine!" he snarled at Xander, who jumped back.

Buffy also looked startled as Angel moved past her to the sink to soak a rag and hold it to his bleeding lip.

The Slayer looked shaken as she stuck her head out the door.

Her lover was nowhere in sight.

"Where's Spike?" she demanded.

There was no answer and she pulled herself back into the camper, striding angrily up to Angel, who sat in the corner, dabbing at his lip.

"Damn it, where is he?!" she demanded.

Angel glared up at her through those dark eyes of his.

"I. Don't. Know," he responded, biting out each word.

Buffy's lower lip trembled as she raced out of the camper.

"Spike! SPIKE!" she screamed.

Alec was outside holding her tightly.

"Shhh, it's all right, I'll find Spike," he promised her. The Slayer was trembling.

"He wouldn't just leave us, he wouldn't just leave me, he wouldn't…" she choked.

She spied Angel standing in the camper doorway over Alec's shoulder and pushed away from her brother, stalking over to him.

"What did you say to him?!" she demanded, sobbing.

"The truth," he replied, unshaken, stepping off the camper. "That you deserve to have someone you can grow old with, someone who possesses a pulse."

Buffy's jaw dropped and, with a grunt, she reared back and punched him hard across the face.

"How dare you!" she screamed at him. "How dare you come into my life and pass judgment on my loved ones!" she spat at him, making the aged vampire flinch as the spittle hit his face

"I don't know you anymore. I don't love you anymore. Stay out of my way," she said in a frozen tone.

Angel shuddered at her words, his face spasming in pain as she shoved past him, back into the camper. Alec calmly walked up to him.

"You know, Angel? I've always thought that Buffy's choice in lovers was a little lacking." He stopped and regarded the vampire coolly. "Now, I'm sure of it," he finished.

Angel looked up at him, opening his mouth to retort, but Alec cut him off.

"You want Buffy to be happy, that's good. But you're trying to tell her what to do, and that's not righteous, that's _self_-righteous. You're telling her she needs to be with the living, and that's true, she does. But are you telling her for her sake," he focused on Angel, his eyes boring into the other man's, "or for yours?"

Silently, he strode past the stunned vampire and off into the woods to hunt for his sister's boyfriend and his best friend, leaving the vampire alone in the dark.

Alec quietly opened the door. Willow, Anya, and Faith were comforting Buffy, Xander and Giles were reading something on the 'Net. They all looked up. Alec sighed and shook his head; Buffy's face fell and she began to shake quietly. Faith put a comforting arm around her and looked up at Alec.

"What about Angel?" she asked.

Alec shook his head.

"He's gone, too, doesn't look like he's planning on coming back either," he informed them.

Faith paled a little and swallowed. Dawn shot her a look, knowing exactly that Angel's departure would wound her as deeply as Spike's had wounded Buffy. Faith turned back to the other Slayer, comforting her. Willow sighed and got up from the table, wrapping her arms around Alec, resting her head against his chest.

"Why does love have to be so complicated?" she asked sadly.

Alec looked up at Dawn, who had a lost little girl look on her face as she regarded the two lovers. He sighed and kissed Willow's head.

"I don't know," he responded truthfully.

Giles cleared his throat.

"Spike and Angel's desertion aside, we still need to come up with a plan to have the fractal decrypted," he put in gently.

Alec nodded and sighed, releasing Willow.

"Well, unless anyone has a better idea, I say we go ahead with Angel's plan and try to find these gypsies."

Giles frowned up at his son.

"Are you sure that's wise, Alec? The Spaarti have proven themselves very dangerous adversaries," he cautioned.

Alec nodded.

"Yeah, but chances are they were there for the manor, not for us," he frowned. "At least, not for any of us - it is possible they came gunning for Angel."

Buffy looked up from her resting place on Faith's shoulder.

"But how could they know he was here?" she asked.

Anya turned to her.

"Romany are very skilled seers. Some of those stories regarding crystal balls are true, you know," she informed the heartbroken Slayer.

Buffy just nodded and went back to leaning on Faith. Alec sent his sister a sympathetic look, before continuing.

"Whatever the cause, I think they could at least point us in the right direction," he commented.

"IF they don't try to kill us first," Xander added.

"They won't," a voice said from behind them.

They turned to see Angel, his face fully healed, standing in the doorway of the camper.

"Alec is right, chances are they were either gunning for me or for the manor. In either case, the rest of you shouldn't have any reason to be attacked." He turned aching eyes to Buffy. "I couldn't find him, Buffy, I'm sorry."

She raised a hand, cutting him off.

"We have nothing to say to each other," she replied quietly, before resting her head back on Faith's shoulder.

Angel looked like he was about to say something, then thought better of it and turned back to Alec.

"If we can find their lair, we should be able to get an audience with their chieftain, DeGanon, I'm guessing. With any luck, he'll be able to decipher the fractal or at least point us in the right direction of someone who can."

Alec nodded thoughtfully. "All right, but we still need to find them," he replied.

Angel sighed. "I spent a few decades on the streets of New York, the tattoos the girl had on her face - I've seen them before. It's the symbol of a gang down in Manhattan, we could get there in a couple of hours. I've got a few people I can talk to, I should be able to dig up a lead."

Alec nodded. "All right, let's do it." He turned to Xander. "Let's get this show on the road."

Xander frowned.

"What about…?" He gestured to Buffy.

Alec sighed. "If Spike wants to be found, he'll have to find us. Other than that, there's nothing else we can do."

He looked up for her agreement. She sniffled and nodded.

"He's right, we don't have time to wait around," she lifted her head to look at Xander. "Get us out of here," she whispered.

Xander just nodded.

"You're the boss, Buff," he replied quietly, his heart aching for his friend.

Shooting Angel a nasty look, he walked towards the front and started the engine. The camper roared to life and slowly pulled away from the rest stop to disappear in the gloom of night.

"Ah, New York, the city so nice they named it thrice," Xander quipped as the blazing lights of the city came into view.

Alec looked up, as the glowing metropolis came into full view.

"Wow!" Dawn breathed, her nose pressed up against the window in the passenger seat, taking in the overwhelming sights. It was her first time in the big city and it was pretty impressive. Alec grinned at her from the back and gently shook the slumbering witch in his lap.

"I'm up, Mom," Willow responded sleepily.

Alec grinned and kissed her cheek; Willow smiled demurely and rotated her face to capture his lips in a long kiss.

"You're not Mom," she commented, opening her eyes.

Alec grinned and opened a window, letting in the cool night air.

"No, but you want to see something interesting?" he asked her.

Willow bobbed her head, sitting up. Alec grinned and stood.

"Get your coat," he instructed her.

She did, puzzled, and with some gymnastics, Alec crawled out of the window and clambered up the side of the moving camper to sit on the massive roof. Willow peeked her head out of the window, staring up at him.

"Alec, what do you think your doin- EEK!" she squeaked as he reached back and hauled her up over the side to rest beside him. Alec grinned his crooked grin and pointed.

"Look," he said.

Willow looked up and gasped. The whole city glowed, pinks, greens, violets, turquoise and all the colors of the rainbow shined in the city that never slept. Alec grinned at her, his face colored by the barrage of lights.

"You like it?" he asked her.

Willow just shook her head, speechless.

"It's unbelievable," she breathed.

Chuckling, the younger Giles wrapped an arm around her. She scooched closer to him, mooching body heat from her lover as she rested her head on his shoulder, gazing in awe at the glowing city that surrounded them.

Xander pulled into a large RV rest area, just inside Manhattan and shut the engine off.

"My first experience with New York traffic. God willing my last," he commented dryly as he got off the camper.

"Yeah," Anya agreed, following him, "I didn't know nuns even _knew_ some of those words they yelled at you on the expressway."

Xander grimaced, remembering the bus of angry nuns he'd managed to cut off and the barrage of insults that had been screeched at him by the seemingly harmless-looking old women. He sighed and stretched his arms as the rest of the group filed off the bus. Alec hopped off the roof of the motor home and, reaching up gently, caught Willow as she jumped off the roof. She landed gracefully and kissed his cheek.

"Thank you, kind sir," she whispered demurely.

Alec grinned and wrapped an arm around her waist, turning to the rest of the group.

"Okay. So, what now?" he asked.

Angel pursed his lips in thought.

"There's a club. 'Nocturnal Sacrament', I think it was called. Goth hangout, but a good place to start," he informed them.

Alec nodded and did a little mental math.

"We're a tad too many for the average cab, any suggestions?" he asked Angel.

Angel sighed. "I guess, the subway," he stated resignedly.

Giles' eyes widened.

"The New York subway, at night, during the holiday season?" he asked in dismay. "I think I'd prefer the Hellmouth," he stated dryly.

Alec chuckled, patting his father's shoulder affectionately.

"Agreed. But remember this is in the name of global salvation, so we must endure," he grinned at the elder Giles, who smiled back wryly and nodded.

"This way," Angel told them, leading them down the shining street.

They quickly formed a diamond with Buffy, Giles, Xander, Faith, Angel, and Alec on the periphery and Willow, Dawn, and Anya in the center. None of them were taking _any_ chances with the infamous New York City streets. Angel quickly led the group down a set of stairs where they descended into the subway station. The floors were caked in grime, stained white linoleum peeking through here and there. Trash strewed the floor as bits of newspaper blew about. A vent in the wall churned out foul smelling steam and a shattered florescent light dangled crazily from the ceiling, flickering madly and giving off a strobe-light effect to the subway platform.

"Cozy," Buffy commented as she looked around.

A bored subway attendant took their money, through bulletproof Plexiglass, no less, and handed them all their subway tokens. They walked through the rusted turnstiles, doing their best not to touch them much and waited on the platform, near the track. Dawn leaned over the edge of the platform, staring intently into the dark depths of the tunnel. A hand reached out from behind her and gently pulled her back. She started and turned to confront Alec.

"Careful, petite," he admonished.

Picking up a stray cigarette box from the ground, he tossed it onto the third rail that was humming quietly. There was a series of sparks as the box made conduct with the electrified rail, the box burst into flames and curled in on itself, the smell of burning cardboard hung heavily in the air. Dawn swallowed and moved a little closer to Alec.

"Thanks," she whispered. Alec smiled and stroked her hair affectionately.

"Anytime," he looked down at her. She looked up at him and smiled. "Every time," he added.

Her smile glowed as she made a happy sound and moved away from Alec to read some posters. Alec chuckled as Willow came up behind him.

"Oh yeah, she's got a thing for you," Willow observed wryly.

Alec turned and favored his lover with a wry grin.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he commented.

Leaning over he placed a kiss on her brow. She smiled and winked before turning to talk to Faith about something. Still chuckling, he looked up and frowned. There was something in the darkness of the tunnels. Alec squinted and could just make out a vaguely humanoid shape, hunched over. The shadow shifted and Alec started to see two tiny pinpoints of red light regarding him, shining from the dark. Then the lights disappeared as the shadowy figure vanished. Alec carefully turned to Angel who was also observing all this.

"Did you just see…?"

"Yeah," Angel responded.

"Any clues?" Alec asked.

"Not one, but let's stay on our toes," he advised.

Alec nodded.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," he agreed quietly.

There was a quiet rumbling and Alec gestured for Angel to move back. Angel turned to address the rest of the group.

"Train's coming," he announced.

The rest of the group fell into line behind the vampire as the subway train came whooshing past, before pulling to a screeching stop. The doors haltingly slid open and Angel held them as the rest of the group filed into the dirty subway car. He let go and the metal doors shuttered closed as the train pulled away from the station. There was a gang of ne'er-to-do looking punks on the other side of the car, near the back door. They leered and hooted as the girls walked onto the train. Alec and Angel glowered at them. Giles and Xander carefully moved to flank the young women as the gang got to their feet and sauntered over for a chat.

"Well, well, well, what do we got here?" One of the punks, a man with a crew cut and a barb through his eyebrow leered as he scanned the group. "It's not even Christmas yet," he chortled.

Alec bristled as the thug's gaze fell on Willow.

"Here, now, a redhead. Oh, I do like the pretty redheads." The punk licked his lips as the gang behind him laughed.

Willow tried to avoid eye contact as Alec straightened up.

"She's not for you," he informed the young thug.

The gang made an "ooo"-ing sound as the lead thug produced a switchblade.

"Yeah, so what are you going to do about it, tough guy?" he challenged.

Buffy flinched as Alec's face split into a vicious grin. _Here it comes,_ she thought grimly.

Alec lashed out with a hand, catching the punk's knife hand in his fist, he jerked the punk around, ripped the blade from his hand, spun him around hard, and slammed him against one of the support bars, putting the knife to his throat.

"Now, then," Alec purred, his voice full of deadly intent. "You can apologize to the young lady, or we can give you a permanent smile," he stated.

Buffy started to get up.

"Alec…" she cautioned.

Alec turned to flash her a wink, letting her know his threat was mainly for show. At least, she hoped that's what he meant as she sat back down. Alec turned back to the punk and gave his arm another hard twist.

"Well?" he demanded.

The punk muttered something obscene.

"Dust this creep, will you?" he yelled.

Alec looked up as several gang members removed pistols from their belts to take aim at Alec. Willow and Dawn gasped as Xander and Giles moved to protect them. Faith and Buffy got to their feet.

"I wouldn't do that," Angel commented.

He stepped more into view of the gang members, his game face in place, then grinned, his face displayed prominently and licked his lips in a decidedly Angelus-like fashion. There were muttered gasps from the gang members.

"Madre de Dios," one of the punks muttered, crossing himself.

Angel grinned.

"What are you guys waiting for? Fill him full of lead!" the leader with the knife to his throat cried out.

Some of the guns turned on Angel, who was ready to jump into the fray. Alec tightened his grip on the leader's arm, pressing the glittering knife tip to his pulsing jugular.

"Not unless you want Slappy here to be dead before he hits the floor," Alec growled back at them.

And without any warning, the car was plunged into blackness. The only lights coming from the service lights lining the subway tunnel that flashed by in rapid succession. There were exclamations of surprise from everyone as the punk, forgotten, scrambled away from Alec, rubbing his arm. He whipped out a pistol and took aim at the younger Giles.

"Alec!" Faith yelled.

Alec turned just in time to stare down the long barrel of a .357 magnum. The punk grinned homicidally and cocked the hammer back.

"Not so tough now are we?" he giggled before taking aim.

There was another loud click, and Giles advanced with his own monstrous weapon aimed at the man threatening his son.

"If you'll forgive the expression, mine is bigger than yours, now let my son go."

Alec frowned at the weapon his father was brandishing.

"Dad, where on Earth-?!"

Suddenly there was a high-pitched wail of pain and terror from behind the gang, causing the gangbanger to spin round abruptly. Alec lashed out with a tendril of darkness, knocking his arm down. The gun went off and fired a bullet right into the meaty part of the punk's thigh. The thug screamed and dropped to the ground, clutching the bloody ruin of his thigh. Alec looked up from his work, and froze in shock.

A great shadowy darkness was holding one of the thugs up by the neck, its head hunched over the man's throat, a trail of blood trickling down. Alec understood immediately.

"Vampire!" he cried as the rest of the group came together behind him.

The shadowy apparition reared up from its meal and hissed at them, its features still cloaked in darkness. The thug was dropped to the ground, lifeless, as the creature began to advance on them. The other gangbangers shook off their surprise and turned their weapons on the advancing monster. The small car exploded deafeningly with gunshots as no less than six weapons opened up on it. Dawn put her hands over her ears, her eyes squeezed shut in fear. Xander lurched across the car and tore an emergency kit down from the wall. Ripping it open, he fished around and found a small flashlight. Praying that it was still in working order he flicked it on and pointed.

He instantly regretted it.

The vampire was well over six feet tall and utterly inhuman. It had a bald, misshapen head and monstrous features. Its eyes shined red like a great rat, its fangs jutted out from its mouth, which was caked in grime. The creature snarled up at Xander, hissing, a forked tongue flickering out as bullets tore though its body. Then, with a blur of superhuman speed, it charged the gun-wielding thugs and tore through their ranks. A splatter of gore struck Xander in the face, causing him to drop the flashlight in shock as screams of pain and terror filled the car. Sounds of rending and splattering and a disgusting guzzling sound followed. Xander put a hand to his mouth, trying hard not to be sick.

"The front! Get to the next car!" Angel yelled, frantically herding everyone towards the front of the car.

Alec followed him, on the way helping the still whimpering punk writhing on the floor to his feet, taking the gun from his hands. It would have been so much easier to leave him there to be eaten and, for a moment, Alec considered dropping the other man to do just that, but his better nature won out. The gangbanger may have been scum, but nobody deserved that.

"Come on, man!" he yelled as the punk hobbled along side him.

The wounded thug made it three steps before something reached out from the dark and yanked him back, screaming. Alec spun around and grimaced at the sounds emanating from the shadowy portions of the room, before fleeing into the next car.

"Come on, come on, come on!" Xander cried frantically.

Alec dove through the door and Xander kicked the release handle, causing the other car to begin to drift away from the main body. The young carpenter sighed in relief and wiped at his face frantically.

"Well, I guess that takes care of tha-"

His eyes widened as the bald abomination appeared in the doorway of the rapidly retreating car, hissed, and, with a bound, _flew_ towards the open doorway. Xander yelled and slammed the door shut. The creature burst through the thin metal door, spraying shards of Plexiglass upon everyone, and hooked a claw on Xander's shirt as it dangled half out of the car, the train tracks flashing by with blurring speed. Xander yelled in fright and braced himself against the doorway, desperately struggling against the monstrous vampire dragging him slowly out of the car.

"Xander!"

Buffy cried as she and Faith ran over to him, pulling him away from the snarling vampire. The young man groaned as he was pulled in two directions. The vampire reared back a clawed hand to strike… and stopped in shock as the barrel of Giles's gun manifested seemingly out of nowhere and wedged itself directly into the creature's drooling mouth. The older man looked over the gun sight and smiled grimly.

"Hello, there," he quipped darkly and pulled the trigger.

The back of the creature's head simply exploded as the beast wailed in rage and agony. Giles stepped back as his son charged past him, and, with a flying kick, the creature was blown backwards, arching high into the air with a monstrous screech. Xander almost went with it, but Faith and Buffy yanked him back into the car where they all tumbled into a heap on the stained floor.

The vampire, its arms flailing, came down right onto the third rail with a loud crunch. Its body ignited as it roared in pain, thrashing as thousands of volts of electricity cooked it. Finally, it lay still, burning brightly.

Alec watched it as the subway pulled further away and turned a corner, causing the creature's burning corpse to vanish from sight. With a shuddering sigh, he came back in to sit wearily on a bench. Willow rushed over to hug him.

"Are you all right?" she asked worriedly.

Alec nodded, a little shaken. "I'm okay."

He looked over at Xander, who was being helped to his feet by the two Slayers.

"Xander?"

Xander nodded, fingering his shredded shirt.

"The shirt has suffered, but the man is intact," he replied shakily.

Anya rushed to his side, bowling him over, kissing him and holding him tightly.

"That was very brave honey, don't EVER do it again!" she demanded.

Xander just nodded and sighed, resting his head against the car wall. Alec smiled slightly.

"Well, I guess they _aren't_ exaggerating when they say that New York is full of weirdoes," he quipped lightly.

The group dissolved into laughter as Willow kissed him.

Giles adjusted his glasses and peered at his son, holstering his weapon.

"What I wouldn't give for a cup of Earl Gray and a good book right now," he commented wistfully.

Alec looked up at him and grinned.

"And the Bay City Rollers playing softly in the background?" he asked wryly.

"At this point, I'd even be willing to listen to your 'Six Inch Nails," he commented dryly.

"Dad, about that gun-?"

"Another time, son. Please."

Alec sighed and nodded, then grinned and shook his head, not bothering to correct his father regarding the name of his favorite band as the subway rumbled on.

The damaged subway car pulled into another stop and the group wasted no time in quickly filing off it and heading back to ground level.

Buffy turned to Alec.

"Any ideas at _all_ on what that thing was?" she asked him.

Alec shook his head.

"A vampire obviously, and one that seemed pretty adept at concealment," he replied.

"Pretty quick on his feet, too," Xander chimed in, shuddering slightly at the memory of the vampire tearing through the ranks of the punks like a scythe. Anya held him just a little bit tighter as they emerged onto the street.

Alec turned to his sister.

"Like I said, no idea, but I think you're asking the wrong person," he arched an eyebrow, gently insinuating.

Buffy scowled at him.

"If you're suggesting I should make nice with Angel…" she growled.

Alec raised a placating hand.

"He _did_ help save our lives back there," he reminded her gently. "He does deserve some credit," he finished and then turned to Willow to speak with her in hushed tones.

Buffy sighed and, with a growl, fell into step next to Angel, who had his hands in his pockets, his head lowered.

"What about you? You ever seen anything like Baldy, back there, before?" she asked curtly.

Angel's head shot up and looked at her, a look of earnestness flashing across his face, before he calmed.

"I've heard stories," he began cautiously, "of vampires living in the sewers and subway tunnels. Cast out from the rest of society."

Buffy snorted. "I can see why," she commented, remembering the creature's monstrous appearance.

Angel nodded.

"They're supposed to be masters of concealment, blending in with the shadows, sometimes rendering themselves completely invisible. No vampire would lair in the sewers, those that did were rarely heard from again," he finished grimly.

Buffy shook her head.

"Gee, honey, what's the matter with the world when the sewers are no longer safe for decent, law-abiding citizens to wander amidst?" she asked wryly.

Angel flashed her a smile that caused her heart to flutter just a little.

"Don't know, as soon as I see some decent, law-abiding citizens, I'll ask them," he replied sardonically.

Buffy swatted him on the arm and the two of them laughed quietly. Alec shot a look back, smiling wryly, before turning his attention back to the witch on his arm.

"What do you think the odds are of those two getting back together?" he whispered to her.

Willow frowned and turned to observe Buffy and Angel walking together, smiling and nodding. The redhead smiled and turned back to her boyfriend.

"Who knows?" she replied, shrugging her slim shoulders before smiling. "But they do look cute together, don't they?" she asked.

Alec chuckled and held Willow closer to him, smiling as they walked the streets.

After a few more blocks, Angel pointed to a large building.

"That's it. 'Nocturnal Sacrament'," he informed the group.

"Is anyone home?" Xander asked, squinting in the darkness.

Angel turned to him and nodded.

"I can hear the music from here," he assured, before leading the group towards the building.

The building that turned out to be a huge, ruined cathedral.

For a moment, the group just gaped at the structure - stone gargoyles with eyes painted in some kind of luminous paint that reacted to the black lights, were mounted on stone pillars, their eyes glowed green in the night. A steady bass beat emanated from the cathedral as various people in pancake make-up and vinyl capes filed to and from the club.

Angel threw Buffy a wry look.

"Remind you of any place we know?" he questioned sardonically.

Buffy nodded.

"Billy's club-o-vampire deluxe," she responded, remembering her poor childhood friend who had betrayed her in his quest for immortality in order to escape a terminal brain tumor. A quest that had ended with a stake to his heart. She sighed and headed up the stairs towards the club, the rest of them following.

Buffy had been mistaken; this place had a bit more class than Billy's vampire club back in Sunnydale. Black lights filled the room as throngs of people writhed and danced to pulse-pounding David Bowie. Huge stained glass windows dominated the room, lit from behind by multicolored lights, giving them an eerie and otherworldly appearance. Candelabras burned with red candles and the holy water pews were filled with a glowing orange liquid. Fortunately, for Angel's sake, there were no crosses to be seen anywhere. Buffy had to yell to be heard over the music.

"Keep close!" she screamed, leveling a stern look at Dawn, who was gaping at everything in open amazement. "This means you!" she admonished.

Dawn stuck her tongue out at her and continued to gape at the techno-goth club patrons. Alec turned and smirked to his father.

"Think there's a demonic cult in this place?" he yelled to be heard over the din.

Giles shook his head, his hands over his ears.

"How could one possibly tell?" he gestured to a pair of women with vinyl bodices, coming equipped with plunging necklines.

Each girl had a mouth caked in red lipstick and a set of ridiculously oversized vampire fangs wedged in their mouths. Alec shook his head mournfully, as his father grimaced.

"Americans!" they commented in unison, giving each other long, suffering looks before descending down into the masses of people.

Shoving their way to the bar, the group found a pair of booths and sat down. A waiter dressed as a priest came to take their order, Angel scowled at him so alarmingly that the man blanched and fled from the table. Angel turned his attention back to the group.

"Now all we need to do is to make contact with someone who would know where to find the Spaarti tribe," he told the group.

Buffy rolled her eyes.

"And just how do we do that?" she asked.

"Mingle!" Faith yelled back. "Come on!"

Taking the blonde Slayer's hand she dragged her from the booth and entered into the sea of writhing bodies.

Alec chuckled and took Buffy's vacated seat, Dawn sat next to him and Willow across from them both.

"You do realize we're never going to see them again, right?" Alec commented sardonically.

Willow just shook her head. Xander looked around.

"This place is kinda spooky," he commented.

Anya nodded.

"Do your best to ignore the people around us, honey. I took a look around, and I can tell you right now a few of these people are very scary folk," she informed him.

Xander blanched and tried to become inconspicuous. Alec grinned as he turned to regard Angel.

"So, how do we get in contact with the Spaarti?" he asked him.

Angel didn't answer him, instead beckoning to a nearby waitress, this one attired in a nice cross-between a French noblewoman and a dominatrix, came to their table.

"Round of drinks and a Coke," he requested, shooting a look at Dawn.

The waitress nodded and headed to the bar.

Giles frowned. "Well, while I certainly will need a couple of stiff drinks to endure this place, I fail to see how it will speed our fact-finding excursion along."

Angel took a napkin from the table, and looked around.

"Anyone got a pen?" he asked.

Giles reached into his breast pocket and produced a deep blue ballpoint pen. Angel nodded his thanks and scribbled something onto the napkin. Handing the pen back to Giles, Angel took out his wallet - which was black and leather, to absolutely no one's surprise - and placed a crisp twenty dollar bill neatly into the folds of the napkin, folding the whole thing over once lengthwise just as the waitress came back with their drinks. Angel flashed her his most winning smile.

"Thanks," he said cheerily.

As he helped remove the drinks from the tray, he discreetly slid the napkin and the money, under the tray to brush against the waitress's hands. Her eyes met his for an instant, questioning. Angel smiled up at her.

"What's the club special?' he asked politely, cocking a flirtatious eyebrow.

Alec held up a hand to hide his grin. The waitress smiled at him.

"I'm not sure, let me go back to the bar and ask," she replied before turning away.

Alec was chuckling.

"Slick. A little heavy-handed perhaps, but slick," he complimented.

Angel was peering intently at the bar as Willow frowned.

"Okay, what did I miss?" she asked.

Alec turned to her.

"I'm willing to bet that Angel's twenty and note, is right now being scrutinized as our waitress is consulting his little telegram with a few other people." He turned a questioning look to the vampire. "A password?" he asked.

Angel shook his head.

"A pair of teardrops and something written in Romany," he replied.

Alec chuckled. "Clever. So, just in case they're not connected, we don't look like a bunch of chumps for revealing our interests to the wrong people."

Angel tilted his head in acknowledgement. Willow made a sound of understanding.

"Sneaky. We'd never do this kind of thing at the Bronze," she commented.

Alec gestured to a pair of large men, with grayish skin and horns.

"Yes, but you'd never run the risk of running into _those_ in the Bronze either," he smiled wryly.

Giles snorted. "Care to place a wager on that, son?"

Alec chuckled as Xander turned to look. He blanched and hurriedly faced front.

"And those would be…?" Xander asked.

Giles spoke up.

"C'boath demons," he replied. "Apparently, taking a break from guarding the reigning nobles of the fifth circle of hell to have a pint and a smoke," he commented dryly.

Alec chuckled in amusement.

"It could be worse, Dad," he whispered direly. "There could be karaoke."

Angel's head shot up.

"What's wrong with karaoke?" he demanded.

Alec shrugged.

"There's nothing wrong with karaoke? Why?" he asked teasingly. "Picked up a new hobby aside from lurking and brooding?"

Angel shook his head vehemently.

"Not by choice anyhow." Alec arched an inquiring eyebrow, but Angel waved him off clearly unwilling to discuss it any further. "Long story, I'll tell you later."

Alec grinned and looked up as the waitress came back with a tray of food they didn't order.

"Okay, two burgers medium rare," she placed them before Xander and Alec, "three hotdogs," she placed a basket of wieners before Dawn, who grinned in delight and quickly pounced on the first, "a Chicken Caesar salad," the waitress continued as she placed it before Willow, who smiled in surprise, "a cup of tea, Earl Grey, with milk and sugar," she handed the cup to Alec, who handed it to Giles. The Watcher took it, flabbergasted. "And a club special," she finished, putting a large sandwich down in front of Angel before smiling at them. "Compliments of the house. If you require anything else, don't hesitate to let us know," she smiled at them winningly before retreating.

Alec looked over at Angel.

"Okay, now _I've_ missed something," he confessed, taking a few tentative bites of the burger in front of him before setting it down, feeling nauseous; for some reason, food just wasn't agreeing with him lately.

Angel, meanwhile, just set upon dismantling his sandwich systematically. Alec frowned, puzzled, as Angel rooted through slices of corned beef with mustard.

"Uh, Angel? Aren't we a little old to be playing with our food?" Willow asked around a mouthful of chicken salad.

Alec shot her a wry look.

"Aren't we a little old to be talking with our mouths full?" he replied chuckling.

Willow narrowed her eyes at him and made an angry little growl, before going back to chewing contently on the salad in her mouth.

"I'm just looking for…"

Angel smiled and slowly removed a tiny, folded up piece of paper from between two slices of beef.

"If that says 'I know what you did last summer', you're on your own," Xander commented, swallowing a mouthful of burger. He looked down and frowned, the other half of his burger was missing. He turned to observe Anya delicately wolfing down the missing piece.

She frowned at him.

"What? I'm hungry!" she replied defensively.

He sighed and forlornly took another bite out of his half of the burger.

Dawn looked up from her hot dog basket, one already devoured and eagerly working on the second, an inquiring look on her face.

"Hey, how did that lady know what to bring us?" she asked.

Alec turned, and was shocked to see only one, and a quickly disappearing half a hot dog, left over from her original three. He looked up at her in amazement. She frowned at him in a perfect imitation of Anya's earlier gesture.

"What? I'm hungry," she repeated.

Alec smiled, shaking his head before gesturing to the bartender, who had black skin and a large diamond embedded in his forehead.

"See him?" He turned to Dawn, who nodded as she took a bite out of her third and last hot dog. "Guy's a telepath. Chances are, when we came in here, he gave us a quick 'once over' to see what we would be most likely to order. Pretty effective if you think about." He smiled back at Dawn, who frowned in distaste.

"You mean that guy read my _mind_?" the girl asked, understandably uncomfortable with the idea.

Alec smiled reassuringly.

"Yes, but not at a very deep level. Believe me, if there had been any sort of powerful telepathic probe, I'd have picked up on it."

He smiled wryly as the others looked about, slightly confused about how on earth Alec would know about telepathic probes. Giles, who most assuredly did _not_ look confused, merely sipped his drink.

Dawn smiled, reassured by Alec's words and continued to devour her food. Alec chuckled and turned back to Angel, who was scrutinizing the note.

"What's it say?" Xander asked.

Angel looked up.

"Well, it says we can make contact with the people we need to see, downstairs, in a sort of VIP section," he replied.

Alec's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Trap?" he asked.

Angel nodded. "Probably," he replied.

Alec sighed and turned to the dance floor. Scanning the crowd, he found Buffy and Faith, it was pretty easy given the vast circle of men they had surrounding them, and beckoned to his sister. Buffy nodded and turned to Faith, gesturing to the table. Faith turned and sighed before nodding; she turned back to the men, pantomimed dialing a phone, pointed to herself, and followed Buffy.

"What's up?" Buffy asked.

Alec got up and spoke with her in a hushed tone.

"Angel's got a lead to someone who can direct us towards the Spaarti." Alec sighed. "Unfortunately, it's also probably a trap. So, we're going to split up." He turned to Angel. "You, me, Buffy, and Dad will go downstairs and play Keyser Soze with our pals downstairs. The rest of you, stay here and keep your eyes open." He gave Faith a grim look. "We're not back up here in twenty, come down ready to pound people into insurance settlements."

Faith nodded. "On it, D," she replied.

Alec turned to Willow.

"Don't suppose you've got anything in the way of magical charms in case things get hairy?" he inquired

She frowned, then her eyes lit up as she dug into her purse, removing a small sphere about the size of a ping-pong ball.

"If things get bad, throw this on the ground, it ought to serve as a pretty good distraction," the Wiccan replied, smiling up at him.

Alec tentatively took the ball from her, and tucked it into his coat.

"Be careful," she told him.

Alec smiled wryly.

"I hear that a lot from you," he replied dryly.

Willow nodded, and leaned in close to his ear.

"It's because I love you, you idiot," she whispered before kissing his head gently.

Alec grinned and stood up, stroking the witch's face with affection, then turned back to Faith.

"Something does go down, make sure Dawn gets someplace safe first, all right?"

Faith nodded in understanding and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"It's done," she reassured him.

Alec nodded, not sure why his chest suddenly felt tight, before turning back to the group. Angel rose from his chair to stand beside him; Giles finished his tea and followed.

"Alright. Let's go be social," Buffy declared.

She left the table, Angel, Alec, and Giles following. They arrived at the door to the back. A stony-faced bouncer-type stood vigil over the door. Angel handed him the note, the guard looked it over before unclipping a velvet rope and granting them access. The four walked through the open doorway and headed down a flight of stairs. Soft music came from an open doorway on the left at the bottom of the stairs. The gentle glow of firelight flickered in the darkness, spilling out of the open doorway, casting shadows against the opposite wall. The four finished their descent and turned towards the open room.

Several cocked crossbows and guns greeted them, wielded by young teenagers with unsmiling faces and teardrops tattooed on their faces. The four of them sighed and slowly raised their hands.

"Guess we won't have to look for the Spaarti tribe after all," Buffy commented quietly, her hands above her head.

Alec just nodded wearily.

This wasn't going to be pleasant.


	23. Chapter 20 The Siege

The four of them were led through the club beneath a club

The four of them were led through the space underneath the club. Unlike the upstairs, this room was furnished in natural oak. A roaring fireplace lay along one wall. The room was softly lit, with tastefully quiet music drifting in through speakers mounted in the corners. It looked more like a medieval tavern than a club.

Jerking aside a curtain, one of the crossbow-bearing youths gestured for the four to enter. They did.

…Into a room dominated by a giant tree.

The four gaped at it. Not a tiny sapling by any means, this tree was more than a meter in diameter at the base, extending from a patch of plain earth up through the top of the room, which Buffy realized had no ceiling. Leaning against the base of the tree, casually, reading a book, was a man. The man looked up and Buffy gasped when she saw his face.

"Dracula?" she asked incredulously.

The man shook his head and stood, providing Buffy with a clearer look. No, it wasn't the Dark Prince. In stark contrast to the vampire's death-like pallor, this man had dark skin and his hair shined black and luxurious in the firelight. Still the resemblance was unmistakable. He smiled, walked over to them, dressed in a poet's shirt and brown leather pants, and bowed.

"Greetings. My name is DeGanon, welcome to my home."

He gestured to the guards, who put their crossbows away. He smiled charmingly at the group of travelers.

"And you, if I'm not mistaken, are part of the coterie that devastated my tribe in our raid against the Grigori Estate."

The smile was there, but there were sharp edges to it. Buffy spoke first.

"Yeah, well, sorry, but I take exception to being attacked by people flying around and hurling lightning bolts," she retorted.

DeGanon acquiesced the point.

"Perhaps," he replied dryly, then turned his gaze to Angel, "but this man has no such excuse." He regarded the vampire coolly. "The legendary Angelus, renowned for his cunning almost as much as for his cruelty."

Angel looked down. Buffy shot the swarthy man a dark look.

"As opposed to the legendary DeGanon, who raids people's homes to steal their magic," she bit out.

DeGanon frowned at her, but kept from retorting.

Giles spoke up. "As you may or may not know Jenny Calendar was a friend of Angel's."

DeGanon snorted. "Does he murder all his friends?" he replied.

Giles' face darkened. Alec stepped in.

"Those were extenuating circumstances," he explained. "The curse-"

"I know all about the curse," DeGanon interrupted. "My family's bloodline was the one that performed it in the first place."

Angel's eyes widened as DeGanon smirked slightly and turned to Buffy.

"When you came in here, you mistook me for our lord, Dracula, who is an ancestor of mine. I assume you know of him?"

Buffy nodded slightly, coloring a little.

"Yeah, we've met," she replied.

DeGanon leaned out and tilted her chin up a little, examining the scar left by Dracula's bite.

"So I see," he responded quietly. He released her and regarded the group. "Our lord has us on the lookout for any and all Slayers that pass through this city," he explained.

"Elisabeta?" Alec asked.

DeGanon turned to him in surprise.

"Yes, he seeks his lost bride. Has he told you this?" he inquired.

Alec shook his head negatively.

"Another source of information. Listen," Alec spoke up, "we could really use your help on decoding an enchanted fractal," he informed the gypsy lord.

DeGanon frowned.

"Yes?" DeGanon asked.

Giles nodded. "We believe it to be a spell. It's encoded in a way that resembles some things that Jenny did before she died," he told him.

"I see," DeGanon replied, nodding.

He turned to someone else and said something in his native tongue. The other man's eyes bulged and he pointed at Angel, jabbering angrily. DeGanon cut him off and sent him away before turning back to address the group.

"It just so happens, that you came at the right time," he informed them. "We have need of such fierce warriors, and you owe a debt to us for the deaths of our kinsmen," he added.

Buffy frowned, angry. "If any of our friends had been killed, would you owe us?"

DeGanon shook his head.

"Of course not, you are _Giorgio_, non-gypsies. Our rules do not apply to you," he informed them casually. "Nevertheless, if you will aid in the coming battle, you will be rewarded. I will have the glyph decoded for you and you will be sent on your way," he finished.

Alec frowned at him.

"If this is another raid-" he began.

"It isn't," DeGanon assured him. "Though, if the raid last night had been successful, the coming battle would be that much easier."

Giles frowned. "Then what sort of battle is it?" he asked.

DeGanon turned to him.

"Our enemies, here, under the ground - the Khulghaani," he explained.

Buffy frowned. "Another gypsy tribe?" she asked.

DeGanon blanched at the unintentional insult.

"No!" he replied. Buffy started as the gypsy lord calmed himself. "No," he explained more calmly, "they are blood-drinkers, monstrous creatures of the dark."

Buffy's eyed widened.

"Bald vampires? About six or so feet tall, that can turn all shadowy and move really fast?" she asked.

DeGanon, surprised, nodded.

"Yes, this is true. How did you know?" he demanded.

She gestured to Alec.

"My brother shoulder-checked one out of a speeding subway car right onto a ten thousand volt subway rail," she told him.

DeGanon's eyes widened as he regarded the other man.

"This is so?" he asked.

Alec shrugged.

"I had help," he told him, turning back to his sister.

DeGanon shook his head in wonder.

"The Khulghaani are incredibly vicious fighters," he told them, more than a little admiration and respect leaking into his voice. "To have slain one in its own territory with no fatalities on your own side is quite an impressive feat," he finished.

He turned to his men and, pointing at Alec, said something in Romany. Far from the angry looks they'd given Angel, the men laughed loudly and came over to slap Alec on the back, jabbering in rapid, friendly tones to the younger Giles. Alec just smiled, uncomprehending, as a gypsy woman brought him a mug of beer.

"What did you say to them?" Alec asked.

DeGanon smiled.

"I told them that you slew no less than five Khulghaani with your bare hands, and that you, the mighty warrior, have agreed to be our General in the coming battle," he stated simply.

Alec's jaw dropped. "You did what?" he demanded.

" 'The mighty warrior'." The Slayer laughed. "I think you've just been promoted, 'General Giles', sir!"

She snapped out a salute as Alec took a long, steadying pull of the black beer. He swallowed the alcohol and coughed before turning to his grinning sister.

"Fair enough," he replied, "and as my first act as General of the Spaarti forces, I hereby appoint you my battlefront coordinator," he informed her.

Buffy blanched.

"I don't lead armies!" she cried. "I just pummel things."

Alec grinned. "Well, then it looks like you just got promoted," he chuckled and turned to DeGanon.

"We have friends upstairs, may they join us?"

DeGanon nodded. "Certainly."

He snapped his fingers and a man came to his side. He said something in Romany. The man nodded and turned to the group.

"DeGanon suggests that one of you travel with me, to ensure your allies' cooperation," he told them.

Alec turned to Angel. "Angel, would you mind?"

The vampire shook his head. "I'm on it," he told him.

He left the room following the gypsy. Alec turned back to DeGanon, his voice slipping into that authoritative, commanding tone he unconsciously took on whenever he started making a plan.

"What are our forces?" he asked.

DeGanon shook his head.

"The failed raid on the Estate took a heavy toll, we are no more than twelve men, and a double handful of youths," he informed them grimly.

Alec shook his head in dismay.

"I don't suppose the youths can perform magic?" he asked.

DeGanon nodded. "Some, although the best and the brightest were with us upon the attack on the Estate," he told him.

Alec sighed. "What about the Khulghaani?" he asked.

DeGanon shook his head.

"We are unsure, but it is safe to say that they outnumber us by no less than two-to-one," he told him.

Alec sighed. "So, in other words, we're outnumbered, outgunned, and expecting an attack… when?" he asked the older gypsy.

"No more than four hours from now," he replied.

Alec sighed. "And we're running out of time," the appointed General finished grimly.

DeGanon grinned and slapped a hand on his back.

"It is almost unsporting! We should perhaps only send half our forces against the Khulghaani," he laughed.

Alec eyed him incredulously.

"After all, with the General that commands the forces of fire and darkness at our side, how can we lose?" DeGanon finished, grinning.

Alec sighed, not bothering to tell the older man that he had had to tap deeper into his powers than ever before… and that the resulting homicidal frenzy that had taken him had convinced him just how dangerous such a proposal was.

Alec sighed again and looked around at the young men surrounding him.

"How indeed," he commented dryly.

Their friends joined them shortly after. Buffy filled them in and DeGanon lead them all through a series of tunnels coming out onto the street. A quick trek across the street and they entered the sewers through a manhole cover. Dawn was less than pleased.

"Terrific. Come to New York and take in the scenic sewer system," she commented unhappily.

Buffy smirked. "Trust me, the sewers in Sunnydale aren't much better," she told her sister.

Dawn snorted. "Yeah, well, give me a life where it's a given that I won't be slugging through sewer systems, period."

Alec had given her a scarf, borrowed from one of the gypsy women, to wrap around her nose and block out the smell. It was hardly sufficient.

Alec walked up beside DeGanon.

"The young women, the non-combatants, where is the safest place for them, in your fortress?" he asked.

DeGanon thought.

"That would be the altar room, it resides in the center of my home and can be sealed shut with heavy floodgates," he told him.

"Heavy enough to stall the Khulghaani?" he asked.

DeGanon nodded.

"If the battle goes poorly, we will retreat to that room and seal it. That will keep the Khulghaani at bay long enough for us to access a secret passageway, leading through a storm drain out into the street," he told him.

Alec nodded as DeGanon held up a hand, signaling for the group to stop. Taking out a flare, the gypsy lit it and threw it down a dark corridor. Cupping his hands over his mouth, he let out a strange undulating howl. The call was returned and a few words were yelled in Romany. DeGanon responded and gestured for the group to follow. They turned the corner and were greeted by more youths with guns and tear tattoos. DeGanon waved at them to lower their weapons, they did so and DeGanon led the group into the vast subterranean complex. The roaring sound of rushing water filled their ears as they noticed about half a dozen miniature waterfalls spilling from large pipelines mounted high in the walls, spilling their contents into murky pools of water below.

"What _is_ this place?" Faith asked, taking it all in.

"It used to be an underground reservoir. When the city built its sewer system, this was converted into a massive aqueduct system to supply the city with its water." DeGanon gestured at the huge pipelines that flowed water into murky pools. "It has since been rendered obsolete. Rather than tear it down, the city decided to just ignore it, building around it rather than through it."

"Your tax dollars at work," Xander commented.

He was trying not to slip on the wet concrete catwalk, as it was lined with three pools on each side, the massive aqueducts pouring water into them hard. Alec looked around and gestured to the pipes.

"Can these be sealed?" he asked.

DeGanon nodded and, putting his fingers to his lips, whistled, making a slashing motion across his throat. There were sounds of acknowledgement and with a groan of metal, huge cover plates slid over the openings of the pipes; the flow of water first slowed to a trickle, then into nothing at all. The sudden silence was deafening, followed by a gurgling as the six pools surrounding the catwalk drained out. Moments later the concrete pits were empty.

Alec sighed. "Thank you."

Turning to DeGanon, he addressed the gypsy leader.

"I need everyone assembled in the largest room that you have. I also need blueprints showing every way in and out of this place: storm drains, electrical access tunnels - miss nothing," he explained to DeGanon. Sending a sidelong glance at Dawn he continued to address the gypsy. "We also better get to the altar room, I want to make sure it's secure."

DeGanon nodded and gestured.

"This way," he told them, leading them down another tunnel.

Alec joined him, examining their surroundings intently.

"You!"

Alec never saw the blow that knocked him sprawling. Pandemonium erupted as Buffy jumped in front of her brother and blocked the next attack, sending their assaulter sprawling. Alec, still prone, frowned when he saw what was attacking him.

It was a man, heavy-set, in his late forties with a full bushy beard, who looked thoroughly Slavic.

"Murderer!" the man cried out again, scrambling to his feet and removing a knife from his belt, ready to skewer the young man.

A long, thin blade suddenly appeared next to his throat.

"What is the meaning of this, Antonio?" DeGanon demanded coolly, standing over his kinsmen with a needle-like sword in his hand.

"This _bastardi _killed my Julia!" the other man cried out, tears of grief and rage leaking out of his eyes. "He wore the demon's face as he tore her heart from her body!"

Buffy, who was helping Alec up to his feet, looked stunned and regarded her brother in shock.

"Alec, is this true?"

Alec shrugged, "I don't know, I killed a lot of people that day."

"Son," Rupert began, coming up behind them.

" 'Son' nothing! It was a battle - we lived, and they didn't. That's all." Alec retorted sharply.

"You killed my little Julia, my baby, my only family!" Antonio roared.

Alec stepped past his sister to confront the man; DeGanon took a step back, unsure as to what to do next.

"Yes, I killed her… Antonio, right? I killed her, and all the others, and if you had been there, I would have killed you as well." Alec turned to regard his own family. "If I had to kill her again, I would. If I had to kill ten people like her, I would. If I had to kill a _hundred_ people, a _thousand, all of you/_, I would." He fixed a level glare at Antonio down on the floor before crouching down on his haunches to join him.

"Because, Antonio, I was protecting MY only family. And if Julia or anyone else has to die for that to happen, then _so be it_!"

Buffy and Giles exchanged shocked glances; they'd never heard Alec sound so brutally cold.

"We've picked our General well," DeGanon said solemnly.

"I'll kill you," Antonio hissed.

"You are welcome to try," Alec said off-handedly. "And you may take comfort in the knowledge that, should you attempt to do so, you will be reunited with your daughter in short order."

The half-demon turned his cold eyes to DeGanon.

"Take him away and get him cleaned up. He is a brave man and is worthy of our respect."

DeGanon nodded and helped Antonio to his feet. The other man continued to glare raw hatred at Alec. Suddenly, he reared back and spat in Alec's face.

"I curse you! By all the powers of the Spaarti tribe, I curse you!"

With that, he shook off DeGanon's grip on his arm and stormed off.

"Get in line," Alec said quietly to the grieving father's departing form.

"Alec, what's going on with you?" Buffy demanded.

"As far as I know, nothing," Alec said, calmly wiping the spit from his face.

"You can't _treat _ people like that Alec, you killed his child!"

"I did, and if I hadn't they might have killed you, or Dad, or Willow… or Dawn."

Buffy drew back from his accusatory tone, but Alec was relentless as he advanced on his sister.

"I'm glad you have such a clear grasp on right and wrong, sister. It must be very simple to regard the rest of the world as either 'good' or 'evil'. But in case you haven't noticed, the good guys keep dying, yourself included, because they won't do what I do."

"What have you been doing, Alec?" Buffy whispered with dread.

"What needed to be done," Alec turned away from his sister. "You keep to the moral high ground, Buffy, don't sully your pristine Slayer hands if you don't want to. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go save all our lives."

With that, he turned and walked off into the dark to plan a war.

And to do what needed to be done.

A short time later found DeGanon, Alec, and two other men straining unsuccessfully against a huge cover plate. After a while, they gave up and turned to the assembled group.

"I am sorry," DeGanon apologized, his face red with exertion, "but the plate has rusted shut, it cannot be moved. This room has not been used in many weeks and the corrosive atmosphere of the sewers has taken its toll."

Buffy casually walked past him and, throwing her shoulder into it, shoved the metal plate aside with a groan of tortured metal. The assembled men's eyes bulged in shock as the petite Slayer finished shoving the metal portal aside and turned to regard the gypsy, brushing flecks of rust from her shirt.

"It's all better now," she told him.

The man just nodded his head, dumbfounded. One of the other men crossed himself, muttering a prayer. Alec frowned and turned to DeGanon.

"That reminds me, do you have a priest here?" he asked.

DeGanon nodded. "Yes, in fact, we do. You have already had the somewhat dubious pleasure of meeting him."

Alec sighed; he knew what was coming next.

"Antonio?" he asked quietly.

"Antonio," the gypsy lord confirmed.

Alec and DeGanon exchanged a quiet, collected, and very calm look. What Buffy read into it chilled her to the bone - if Antonio would not stand _with_ them…

Turning towards the altar room, Alec gave it the once over and nodded, satisfied.

"Where's this storm drain passageway?" he asked.

DeGanon pointed at a large stone cross set on the altar.

"It is behind there," he told him.

Walking over to it, he pressed a hidden catch with his foot and the massive stone cross popped open. The group peered into it, noticing a long narrow darkened tunnel.

"This crawlway leads out of a storm drain and onto the street," DeGanon told them, gesturing. "It is about ninety meters long."

"Two hundred and seventy feet," Giles commented, peering at the crawlspace. "That would do it," he nodded and straightened.

Alec turned to Dawn, placing his hands on her shoulders.

"Dawn, when the battle starts, I need you to stay in this room." He turned to Anya, but continued to talk to the young lady. "Anya will keep you company. If something happens, I want you and her to get into this tunnel and get out of here, you hear me?"

Dawn shook her head.

"I'm _not_ leaving you," she said stubbornly.

Alec smiled, touched at her loyalty, but crouched in front of her.

"Dawn, if you have to leave, and I'm not with you, then chances are I'm already de-."

"Don't SAY that!" she cried. "You're my hero, you can't die!"

Throwing her arms around the older man, Dawn held on tightly. Alec held her back, whispering reassuringly. Buffy turned to the rest of the group, who were taking the display in with looks of compassion.

"We should check the rest of the hideout," she commented.

Everyone nodded and mumbled agreements. Willow placed a hand on Alec's shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked at her, still holding the frightened Dawn. He nodded to her, letting her know he'd be okay. She smiled at him and followed the rest of her friends out of the room. Dawn hiccupped and pulled away. Alec wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Listen, don't worry about me, okay, Dawn? I'm a survivor." He tilted her chin to look up at him. "Remember, I promised to always watch over you?" Dawn sniffled and nodded, Alec grinned. "Well, then I will," he told her.

He gave her a tight hug, feeling his own eyes beginning to ache. The thought of dying, of leaving this girl undefended in this world of darkness and hatred, filled his soul with dread. He buried the feeling and looked back at her face. Smiling, he leaned in and placed a warm kiss on her cheek. Dawn closed her eyes and rested her head against his. When he finally pulled back, Dawn touched her cheek.

"What was that for?" she whispered.

Alec smiled. "For letting me be your hero," he replied.

Dawn smiled at him, her eyes shining through her tear-streaked face as Alec reached out and gently stroked her cheek affectionately. Dawn leant into the caress.

"You'll always be my hero," she told him.

Alec smiled and nodded. "Bet on it," he replied.

Taking her hand he led her from the altar room back to join the others.

"Okay, so, here and here are the access tunnels," Alec gestured to the map.

DeGanon nodded. "Yes, they run the whole length of the city, two hundred miles in total," he told them.

Alec nodded. "Okay, get them sealed," he instructed. DeGanon shot looks to two men who hurried to obey. "That leaves only this main access point, here," he pointed at the map, "where we all came in."

The gypsy nodded. "Yes. If there is to be an attack, it will have to come from that direction. All other access points will have been sealed and it would take a while for even the Khulghaani to break through."

Alec nodded and sighed.

"All right, then. Basic strategy: bottleneck the enemy, force them to come through one way only, and make that one way as unpleasant as possible," he turned to his father.

"Remember the siege of Masada?" he asked.

Giles nodded. "One thousand Jewish zealots resisting a siege of two years against the Roman Empire in 70 A.D.," he replied.

"What happened to the Jews?" Xander asked.

"All but seven committed suicide rather than be captured by the Romans when the fortress fell," he replied.

Xander blanched and turned to Alec.

"Alec, pick another battle, preferably one where the defenders actually _won_," he demanded.

Alec shook his head.

"Think about it though: one thousand untrained Jewish zealots versus an entire legion of professional soldiers, that's at least ten thousand men," he told them, "and they held out for two years."

"We don't exactly have a thousand people," Faith noted dryly.

"We're not exactly facing the entire Roman legion, either," Buffy replied, seeing Alec's point, "and I'm willing to bet we only have to hold out until sunrise. Vampires get pretty sluggish if kept up past their bedtime." She turned to their resident vampire. "Right?"

Angel nodded. "No vampire will fight during the day if they can help it," he replied.

Alec clucked his tongue in acquiescence

"Okay, so that's what we have to do," he sighed and checked his watch. "Sunrise is in five hours, the Khulghaani are due in three. Which means this battle will be done in two hours, give or take."

"Or we'll be," Xander commented darkly.

Alec nodded, and grinned.

"But unlike the Jewish zealots, who had the numbers, we've got the Slayers," he gestured to Buffy and Faith, "a pretty formidable witch," he gestured to Willow, who blushed, "a vampire, who's seen a lot of action," Angel nodded, "and about thirty people trained in the arcane arts and both ancient and modern weapons."

DeGanon grinned and slapped his shoulder.

"And we have you, the mighty General!" he declared.

Alec rolled his eyes and sighed, not really willing to argue the point.

"Okay, so let's get working on those defenses."

Everyone nodded as Alec laid out the plan.

They were all assembled in a large concrete room, just past the aqueduct chamber.

"Okay, I have to ask," Buffy spoke. "Who _are_ you people?" she asked turning to DeGanon.

DeGanon smiled slightly.

"We are mortal descendents of the Romany," he began, gesturing to the dozen or so dark-skinned men and women around the room. "When our lord and master arrived to these shores, we accompanied him. He assigned us to this city, while he himself continued on to Sunnydale."

"The two most likely places for his Elisabeta to manifest - either the largest city in America or the Hellmouth," Giles chimed in, nodding. "It makes sense." He smiled slightly and looked up at the gypsy. "Your loyalty to your vampiric lord is well-documented. It is said that you follow him to the death."

"And beyond my friend," DeGanon replied, "and beyond. Nevertheless we have remained here in this city, searching it for our master's lost bride."

"Okay, I get you," Faith put in, "and I get them," she continued, gesturing to the gypsies around the room, before turning to DeGanon, "but what about all these guys?" she asked gesturing to the kids.

The gypsy smiled.

"Ah, this is our redemption," he beamed at the youths. "Each of these children was encountered in our search for Elisabeta. They each have great potential in the mystical arts." He sighed. "Unfortunately, they are also outcasts, banished from their homes by unbelieving parents fearing their gifts. Thus the enchanted teardrop tattoos." He sighed once more and shook his head. "We provide what we can, we teach them so that they may teach others and thus spread hope," he finished smiling.

"And to provide reinforcements for the occasional magical pantry raid?" Buffy asked, a little skeptical.

DeGanon sighed and shook his head.

"We take magic from other places, because we need it to defend our sanctuary from the forces of the outside world, the chief amongst these being the Khulghaani," he explained. "Without the magic that we take from others, we ourselves would be exterminated."

"So why not just _ask_ Marlena for a cup of magic, or whatever?" Buffy demanded.

DeGanon snorted.

"Ah, yes, I can see how well asking an ex-Slayer to provide for the servants of the Prince of Darkness would go," he replied sardonically.

"You may just be surprised," Buffy replied, smiling secretly, remembering the elder Slayer's confessed relationship with the vampire prince. "In any case, it's okay to draft _us_ into your little war? In case you haven't noticed there are _two_ Slayers present." She gestured to herself and Faith, who grinned and nodded.

DeGanon nodded.

"It has not escaped my notice, young warrior. But you and your companions have incurred a debt of blood regarding the Spaarti tribe, a debt that must be repaid if you are to receive our assistance in your quest." He leveled a finger at the blond Slayer. "Since our best and our brightest died at your hand, you will take their place to defend our home."

Buffy fell silent.

Alec spoke up. "Speaking of that there's a few other points I want to bring up: firstly…" And with that the General continued to lay out his desperate plan to protect these people.

"I don't care! I will not support that demon and neither will any of my flock!"

Antonio was screaming, red-faced, at DeGanon. The two were alone in a secluded part of the Spaarti sewer kingdom and the gypsy lord was attempting to recruit the priest's help in the coming battle. It was not going well as he pleaded with the man.

"Antonio, please be reasonable. We cannot defend our home without your aid, and we certainly cannot afford to have our people split in two if you insist on denying us not only your help, but also the help of the congregation!"

"He is a monster! A demon! He killed my Julia before my eyes and he _enjoyed_ it!"

"Yes, good, fine; he is a monster," the gypsy agreed placatingly, "but right now is a time for monsters!" the swarthy man placed a comforting hand on Antonio's trembling shoulder. "In times like these, evil must sometimes be fought with another type of evil."

Antonio shook him off angrily. "That is a deal with the devil, and neither I nor any who worship in my chapel will take part in it! I say it is better to lose our home, even our lives, than lose our souls by dealing with this evil creature!"

DeGanon sighed. "I'm sorry you feel that way, old friend."

He grabbed Antonio by the shoulder, quickly spun him around and drew his blade, poised to strike.

"Enough!" a voice cried out.

Both men stopped, stock-still as Alec emerged from the shadows.

"That's enough, DeGanon. We will win this battle with or without Antonio's faction. If we must retreat, we will, but we will not murder a grieving father for his rage."

"Great General, without his people-" DeGanon protested.

"Without his people, it is a more difficult battle, but we already acknowledged that this would not be easy. Murdering Antonio will not gain us an ally, it will only make him a martyr in the eyes of those who follow him and guarantee that they will not aid us."

"Vile demon spawn!" Antonio spat.

Alec turned to address him.

"Yes… yes, I am a demon spawn, and perhaps even vile. I had no choice in the matter; it is my birthright and my curse. The power of Hell itself flows through my veins."

Alec turned to go, then stopped and addressed Antonio over his shoulder.

"But I have a choice as to what I do with it, and I choose to defend my family and friends. Tell me, father, you are a free willed man with no taint of the infernal in your blood – what is your excuse for allowing your hatred to cause you to abandon your people?"

"You should thank me for ending Julia's life, in doing so I have spared her the knowledge of what kind of man her father really is."

Antonio went from red with rage to bone white with shock as Alec vanished into the dark. Even DeGanon looked nonplussed at the sheer brutality in the young man's fading words. Having nothing to say, the gypsy leader left Antonio alone in the dark.

Three hours later, which somehow managed to pass both too slowly and far too quickly for all concerned, they were ready. Alec huddled in the main tunnel, DeGanon beside him, waiting, their senses taunt and tense. Their breaths echoed loudly in the stone tunnel, and there was no light, save for some afterglow from service lights at the far end of the tunnel.

The end that the Khulghaani attackers would be coming from.

Alec crouched a little lower into the muck and peered at the end of the corridor.

"The men are frightened," DeGanon said softly.

Alec nodded. "I know. I can feel it."

"Perhaps some words from their General to encourage them?"

Alec took a deep breath and spoke quietly, in a strong, low voice that carried in the tunnel without, he hoped, giving away their position.

"Brothers, you stink of fear - the Khulghaani can smell it as well."

There were a few mutters of consternation at this. DeGanon sent Alec a puzzled look. _This was his idea of motivating the men?_

Alec continued. "But that's their weakness - they need that fear in order to fight, to win. These are not the wolves of your ancestors that wandered Romania and drove back the Turkish hordes. These are jackals, mere scavengers, drawn by the scent of your fear and what they perceive to be weakness."

Alec grinned tightly.

"They are in for one hell of a surprise."

Now the men responded, sending tight, brave smiles at each other.

"Remember that through your blood flows the blood of the Dragon Prince - your lord Dracula - who took arms against the superior numbers of the Turkish caliph, and sent him scurrying back to where he came from. Remember that yours is a fierce blood, a proud blood, and if any of these blood sucking bastards want it, they will have to trade a gallon of theirs for a drop of yours."

The men began to cheer quietly. Alec had them in the palm of his hand now; it was time to wrap things up on a high note.

"You are the songs of Dracul, the warrior prince, and I say to you that while fear may be their way, it is your legacy! I say that this fight is ours, that their unbeating hearts shall freeze cold and dead in their chests with dread, and that we have already won. We are living men, and they, they are nothing more than corpses."

Alec drew a wooden stake from within his jacket.

"Let's put these corpses back in the ground! Let us impale our enemies on wooden pikes as your noble ancestor once did. Let us show them what real fear is!"

The men cheered loudly then; a long, defiant cheer that was one part war cry and one part the roar of some great beast. Alec smiled grimly to himself: if the Khulghaani heard that, no matter. Perhaps it would simply assure the invading vampires that these men would not die afraid.

Alec turned to address DeGanon, who was grinning wolfishly in anticipation - Alec's words had touched his heart as well and he was no longer afraid.

"Remember, wait until I give the word," the young man instructed him.

DeGanon nodded and turned back to look. His eyes widened and he grabbed Alec's arm.

"Look!" he whispered fiercely.

Alec squinted and saw it – a vague humanoid outline, looking more like heat ripples in the air than anything solid, was slowly creeping up the tunnel, followed by another, and another, and another.

Alec nodded. "Get ready," he whispered.

DeGanon removed the flare from his pocket. More cloaked shapes moved into the light and began to advance on them.

"NOW!" Alec yelled

With a Romany war cry, DeGanon lit the flare and hurled it into the darkness, where it, with a loud _whoosh_ ignited the slime lining the floors and walls of the narrow cavern, fueled by the flammable chemical waste DeGanon had had the foresight to keep in barrels for such an occasion. There were screeches of rage and pain as the tunnel exploded in fire and light, revealing hordes of the bald vampires, writhing in the flames.

Alec turned and cried. "Open fire!"

Without warning, two rows of men brandishing crossbows stepped out of the shadows behind Alec and DeGanon, and took aim at the burning figures. The first row dropped to their knees and fired, skewering several of the vampires with crossbow bolts. The second row advanced as the first row fell back to reload. They too, took aim and fired, impaling several vampires with their bolts causing them to explode into dust.

But the tunnel was rapidly filling with hordes of the monstrous creatures and Alec grimaced inwardly - DeGanon's estimation of two-to-one odds had been grossly optimistic. The second row of crossbowmen fell back as a gypsy in robes began chanting. The vampires began advancing again as the flames began to exhaust their fuel. DeGanon hurled a Molotov cocktail at the advancing creatures, making them snarl and forcing them to fall back slightly. The gypsy mage finished his spell and bolts of lightening flooded the narrow corridor, striking the oncoming vampires, causing them to jerk and convulse as electricity raced through their bodies. The spell ended and Alec stood up.

"Fall back! Crossbowmen cover!" he yelled.

The first line of crossbowmen that had finished reloading, unleashed another barrage of lethal bolts, slowing the Khulghaani's advance before quickly herding out of the narrow corridor. DeGanon followed, but Alec stopped, turning to regard the horrific vampires. They had begun advancing again. Alec dug into his pocket and found Willow's magic ball. Kissing it for luck, he leaned back and hurled it at the vampires. The ball struck the ground.

…And a gargantuan dragon suddenly filled the tunnel. Alec's eyes widened as the massive wyrm roared at the creatures and they screeched in terror and fell back. Alec looked up and noticed that there was a shimmering distortion where the dragon's head met the ceiling. He understood instantly.

"Cute glamour, love," he commented.

Unfortunately, chances were the Khulghaani would unravel the trick soon enough. Turning, he dashed through the doorway.

"Seal it!" he cried out.

Three gypsies quickly shoved the massive cover plate over the entrance and set to work on it with welding torches. They had just finished their work when the metal began to bulge outward from having blows rained on it from the outside. Alec turned to a gypsy man in robes wearing a rosary.

"You all set?" he asked.

"I am."

"Good."

"I will see you in hell, demon!" Antonio whispered fiercely to Alec.

Alec sighed and readied himself for battle. "Not if I see you first, Padre." He gestured to DeGanon. "Get your people out of here, fall back to the meeting room and prepare defenses!" he commanded.

DeGanon nodded and, giving Alec a slap on the back, took the youths and herded them out the back. Alec turned back to Antonio, who was getting ready to do his thing. He looked up at a pair of youths at the switches mounted on the far end of the wall, then turned back to the door that was beginning to buckle. Grabbing the priest, he retreated onto the catwalk.

"Get on it, Padre!" he yelled.

The priest removed a bag of holy wafers, and, praying rapidly, dumped their contents into the empty concrete pools lining both sides of the catwalk. He finished just as the door collapsed and furious vampires came barreling into the room.

"NOW!" Alec yelled

…And, with war cries, Faith, Buffy, Angel, Giles, and Xander came bursting out of the side alcoves, impaling the vampires with giant wooden pikes, sending them tumbling into the concrete pits below. The group formed ranks, swatting the vampires away, knocking them from the narrow catwalk, which forced the Khulghaani to close their ranks and attack single file to pursue the heroes. Some of the Khulghaani decided to descend into the concrete pits and try to outflank them. Alec grinned fiercely at their unknowingly grievous tactical error and gestured to the lads at the switches.

"Throw them!" he yelled.

The boys threw the switches and, with a groan of tortured metal, the cover plates of the aqueducts slid back, allowing a deluge of water to flood the concrete pits, slam into the vampires, and knock them down with crushing force. The vampires howled in rage, which soon became screams of pain as the holy wafers began to dissolve, turning the watery pits into giant pools of holy water.

"Enjoy your Jacuzzi, guys!" Faith yelled at the frothing screaming beasts slowly being dissolved by the holy water.

Willow had entered the room at this point from behind Alec.

"Now?" she asked.

Alec nodded and Willow raised her hands into the air.

"Goddess Hecate, work thy will, turn water into weapons of holy might!" she chanted

A blue light surrounded the witch's hands and the lethal water, filled with dissolved vampire remains, shot out of the pools with a roar, combined into a great tidal wave upon the catwalk, and crashed into the advancing vampires. They screeched as the deadly liquid dissolved their flesh.

Alec grinned. "Fall back! Next room!" He had to scream to be heard over the rushing water.

Grabbing Willow's arm, he pulled her across the catwalk towards the other end of the room. The rest followed as the vampires began to regroup.

There was a cry and Alec turned to see that Antonio had slipped on the catwalk. A scarred and pitted hand had lashed out of a pool, caught the old priest's leg, and dragged him screaming into the water. Alec hesitated only a moment before running across the catwalk, sliding and skidding on his knees to grab the older man and halt his descent. Antonio screamed as the bubbling water quickly took on a reddish tint.

"I've got you, Padre! I'm not letting you go!" Alec cried out.

"Let me die, demon!" Antonio replied, his voice filled with agony.

"Enough good men have died today!"

With a heave, Alec hoisted the priest out of the water and he gagged at what he saw.

Antonio's legs had been severed at his hips, making him look like a shark attack victim.

The mortally wounded priest fell against the young man heavily, Alec fell backwards, cradling him, trying to simultaneously reassure the priest and get to his feet to get to safety.

"You're going to be all right, Antonio," Alec whispered, stroking the old man's hair back.

The priest reached up and touched Alec's face, almost tenderly.

"You have the Devil in you, my son."

Then his hand fell and he was gone.

Tears unexpectedly welled up in Alec's eyes. The old man had hated him, true, but he had been brave to a fault and, in the end, he could not condemn this man for hating the being who had taken his only child from him.

Grief gave way to rage and Alec leapt to his feet, darkness oozing out of his pores like blood. He turned to face the others.

"I'll buy you some time!" he called out, his voice already shifting into the deep inhuman pitch it acquired when his demonic side came out.

Then he froze. Willow was right there, watching him with wide, terrified eyes.

"Willow?" Alec rasped, his voice momentarily returning to its normal tone.

"What are you?" she whispered.

"Yours."

And with a cry, Alec charged towards the oncoming vampires. He slashed and hacked and tore at them, killing by the droves. His wounds healed nearly as quickly as they were inflicted as the Khulghaani fell back against the rage and grief of the darkness demon. Time lost all its meaning and, for a moment, Alec found peace in the slaughter.

"Alec!" Buffy cried out. "Let's GO!"

Alec turned, and saw that some of the vampires had in fact made it past him and were heading towards the door that his friends were keeping open so that he would not be trapped. Realizing his blunder, he raced towards the door, slaughtering any vampires unlucky enough to be caught in his path, and dove across the threshold. Buffy and DeGanon slammed the door shut.

"Is everything prepared?" Alec demanded as he got to his feet, darkness draining out of him.

DeGanon nodded as two youths began welding the door shut, sealing the room.

"It is!" he assured the other man, then frowned. "Where is Father Antonio?"

Alec just shook his head. DeGanon's eyes narrowed in rage as he fingered a stake hanging from his belt, cursing softly in Romany.

"The bastards will pay for that," he growled.

Alec nodded. "Agreed."

They turned to see the door already beginning to warp and buckle under the blows of the Khulghaani. Alec turned to the group.

"Prepare to fall back to the altar room. Ready for hand-to-hand combat," he instructed.

Buffy and Faith grinned, dropping their pikes and taking out stakes.

"Let's do what we do, sister," Faith grinned at Buffy.

Buffy nodded. "Girl power," she replied.

Alec turned to Willow.

"Any other tricks up your sleeve, princess?" he asked.

Willow was looking at him like he was some sort of abomination and it wounded him deeply, but she swallowed her fear and replied calmly.

"The weird water spell was my last one," she told him.

Alec nodded.

"Okay, in that case, when we get to the altar room, stick close to Dawn and Anya. If things get hairy, take the secret passage out of there, got it?"

The redhead paled, but nodded, not bothering to argue. She turned to go, but Alec grabbed her arm, spun her around, and captured her mouth in a long passionate kiss, desperate and fiery. They pulled apart and Alec shoved Willow towards the door to the altar room.

"Go!" he yelled.

She nodded and fled from the room. Alec turned back to the gypsy lord.

"You ready to work your mojo?" he asked.

DeGanon nodded and began to chant. Alec turned to Buffy.

"What's on your mind, sis?" he asked casually.

She favored him with a wry grin.

"The fact that, right now, I could be at home, drinking nog and eating roast beast (is it really roast 'beast'? I keep thinking that some other similarly sounding word should be used, but one that I can't unfortunately remember) instead of in the New York City sewer system in the middle of a war," she replied.

Alec chuckled. "Yeah, but think what great stories it'll make for our respective children," he replied.

She snorted just as a particularly loud crash ripped their attention back to the battle.

"Here they come!" Xander cried.

With a crash, the door caved in and Khulghaani flooded into the room, claws and fangs dripping.

"Now!"

Alec yelled to the gypsy lord as he threw a curtain of darkness over the advancing vampires, blinding them. DeGanon began a spell and, suddenly, bright blue sparks of light begin swirling in the room. Alec's breath crystallized as the temperature in the room plummeted to well below freezing. He lashed out with a darkness tendril severing the pipe over their heads, causing it to disgorge a torrent of water, dousing the advancing vampires. DeGanon finished his spell, a bright blue swirling storm in his hands and, with a cry, he flung it at the soaked creatures. The blue light slammed into them and instantly began to freeze the beasts in their tracks. The enchanted ice engulfed the first few groups of vampires, blocking off the room's entrance with a huge sheet of ice. DeGanon smiled grimly and, lashing out with a pike, shattered the frozen vampires.

"That was for Father Antonio, you blood drinking sons of bitches!" he spat at the frozen remains and turned to Alec. "I have exhausted my spells, we must retreat."

Alec nodded and turned to the rest of the group.

"Fall back!" he yelled as, already, shards of ice began to flake off the mystical barrier, preventing the vampire's advance.

The group hurried into the next room and Buffy and Faith moved the massive plate into place. Alec's eyes became pools of darkness as he readied himself for combat. The youths brandished bowie knives and wooden pikes, having been informed that their guns would be useless. Alec threw a look at Dawn and Willow, who were hiding behind the stone altar, out of sight and safe with Anya. He nodded before turning to Buffy.

"You ready to do that voodoo that you do so well?" he asked wryly.

Buffy grinned and tightened her hold on her stake.

"They want a war? Let's give it to them, bro," she replied.

She turned to Angel, who had his game face in place, wielding a sword that DeGanon had dug up for him.

"Angel?" she asked.

The vampire turned to her and saluted with the blade. Giles and Xander, along with the older gypsy men, each had crossbows cocked and ready. Faith narrowed her eyes in anticipation.

"Let's rock!"

That was the cry of the younger Slayer when the roaring vampires came bowling through the steel door and into the room. Faith met one head on and staked it, already attacking a second before it could explode into dust. Buffy and Alec met the next wave as crossbow bolts flew over their heads to decimate the rear ranks of the vampires.

"Reload!" Xander called out.

The gypsies fell to their knees and busied themselves with their weapons. The youths descended on the vampires, stabbing slashing, and impaling the monsters. Alec lashed out with sharpened darkness whips, severing arms and heads wherever they struck. Buffy continued to pummel any vampire that came too close as DeGanon fought with massive curved blades, wreaking havoc on the Khulghaani.

"Romani Victor!" he cried out in blood-fueled battle glory.

But the fight was not going well, for every vampire they slew, two flooded into the room to replace it. Alec grimaced as more vampires barged into the room; he turned to Buffy, who was busy dodging a Khulghaani's claws.

"I think we're in trouble," he yelled.

Without warning, a clawed hand lashed out, catching him across the head. Alec tumbled to the floor even as the creature reared up to administer the killing blow. He tried frantically to roll out of the way when the beast suddenly screeched in rage and exploded into dust. Alec saw a wooden bolt embedded in the wall above him and turned to see his father nodding curtly at him. He rolled to his feet and gave his father a grateful nod.

A sudden movement off to his right caught his eye and Alec turned, his eyes widening in terror. Somehow, one of the vampires had gotten passed them and had almost made it to the altar, which sheltered Dawn, Willow, and Anya. With a wild cry, Alec hurled a vampire out of his way and dashed over to them. The vampire lunged at Dawn, who screamed in terror and jutted her hands out in a futile gesture to keep the demon at bay. It had time to growl once before a blurred, snarling dark shape plowed into it like an enraged freight train.

"You're," Alec tackled the creature to the floor and, picking him up, slammed him against the wall with a loud _crunch_, "Not," he continued to slam the creature over and over, back and forth, against the wall, quickly turning it into a pulp, "Touching _HER_!"

With a roar of rage, Alec brought his arm up and slammed it down into the creatures face. Blades punctured the beasts face, skewering it, the creature spasmed once and died. With a growl, Alec retracted his arm… and stared at it in shock.

His arm, instead of ending with his hand, now terminated in a variety of sharp blades and hooks, all made of dark metal and crackling with violet strands of energy. He stared uncomprehendingly at the weapon attached to his arm, running from the middle of his forearm all the way to out past his hand. With a metallic snap, the blades folded in on themselves, disappearing under his skin, leaving only a few crackling bolts of purple energy. Alec shook his head, frowning in disbelief as he turned to Dawn, who should have been terrified out of her head by the viciousness of Alec's attack and the blades that had just emerged from under his skin. Strangely, her face was calm as she hugged him; he held her back tightly.

"Are you all right?" he asked hurriedly.

She just nodded. He looked over at Willow, who had come running over; he quickly released Dawn into Willow's grasp.

"Get someplace safe and stay there!" he yelled.

They nodded and fled as Alec leapt off the altar and landed beside Buffy.

"I think a miracle would be nice right about now!" the blonde Slayer yelled.

And on cue, a miracle arrived.

An eruption of shotgun blasts quickly gave way to the sounds of dying vampires. Alec frowned as one of the rear most vampires exploded into flames; he peered over their heads and his jaw dropped at what he saw.

"That's right!" a familiar voice yelled out. "I'm back and I'm a bloody animal! Yeah!"

"Spike!" Buffy cried out in disbelief and joy as another vampire exploded into dust, revealing the blond vampire wielding a pump-action shotgun, spewing flaming death and howling at the top of his lungs.

"Yeah, you like that? How about you, mate?" he roared, game face in place as he fired flaming shell after flaming shell into the surprised vampires. "Come on! There's plenty of Spike to go around! Incendiary rounds for everyone!" he yelled joyfully, mowing a path through the vampires.

"Yeah!" Buffy cried and redoubled her attack on the vampires.

The sudden arrival of a shotgun-wielding Spike had turned the tide back into the Slayers' favor. Alec grinned and lashed out with more darkness, spreading screaming vampire death throughout the room. Spike bludgeoned a vampire to the ground before reversing his grip on the shotgun and firing. There was a bright flash from the barrel as a flaming projectile flew from it and impeded itself into the creature's heart. It screeched and burst into flames.

"Where the hell of have YOU been?" Alec yelled joyfully as he roundhouse-kicked a vampire to the ground before decapitating it with a flick of his wrist.

"Sightseeing!" Spike replied as he fired another shell into the vampires' midst. "Then I heard about a little war going on and thought I'd enlist!"

Alec grinned and lashed out with a fist, smashing a Khulghaani away from the blond vampire. Another wave of crossbow bolts crashed upon the monstrous vampires and, with a roar of rage, they began to retreat.

"We've got them on the run!" Alec cried, charging after them. "Finish them off!"

With a last, rallying cry, the room emptied as gypsies and the surviving youths charged after the fleeing creatures. They fought them back to the aqueduct room and knocked them into the still draining pools of holy water, where they died screaming and thrashing. The vampires tried to run, but with no way to cross except the narrow catwalk, which was soaked with holy water, they were cornered. DeGanon and his forces pursued and cut them to ribbons; those that didn't die in the pools, died by stake, blade, pike, or crossbow bolt.

And suddenly, it was all over.

Alec looked around, dazed, but the battle was done. Spike swaggered over to him.

"Miss me, mate?" he asked wryly.

Alec grinned and gathered the vampire in a tight embrace amidst much manly back-pounding.

"Your timing, _'mate'_, is impeccable," Alec replied, releasing the vampire.

Spike grinned, before reasserting his masculinity.

"Yeah, well, a hug was a little much. A handshake would have sufficed."

Spike grinned again and suddenly exhaled hard as Buffy came running up to him, leaping into his arms, hooking her legs behind the vampire's back, and kissing him full on the mouth. Spike dropped the melted shotgun and kissed her back fiercely. Alec's eyes bulged in surprise as he took in the display. Finally, the pair parted, Buffy lowering herself to her feet.

"Don't you _ever_ run off like that again!" she warned direly.

Spike crossed his heart.

"Done deal, love," he replied grinning.

"How did you know where to find us?" she asked breathlessly.

Spike favored her with a cocky grin.

"Well, the great gob's not the _only_ vampire ever to reside in the Big Apple, besides, every bloke knows about the Goth church," he answered, shrugging. "I just followed what people were telling me, and here I am." He grinned at her.

Buffy kissed him again.

"You're so smart," she replied cutely.

Spike grinned and threw an arm around the Slayer, following Alec back into the chamber to meet with the others.


	24. Chapter 21 Fallout

**Chapter 21**

**Fallout**

Spike froze mid-smile as he looked past Buffy's shoulder, his face a study of surprise and grimness.

_Click._

Buffy turned, frowning, when she heard the sound. Xander had a crossbow leveled at someone past her field of vision. When she finished rotating, the Slayer gasped.

The weapon was aimed at Alec.

"Xander, what are you-"

"What's the deal, _D__usk_?" the young man demanded, using Alec's less-familiar moniker. "Exactly when did you turn into the lovechild of Jackie Estacado and Venom? Got an alien symbiote or something?"

"Something like that," Alec replied quietly.

"Xander, come on, stop fooling around-" Buffy tried again.

"Buff, I hate to be the person that said 'I told you so' but when he first showed up, I told you that it was a mistake to just trust this guy just because he says he's Giles's son."

"He is my son," Giles put in simply. "I assure you."

"Maybe, maybe not, but right now what he isn't, and what should be clear to everybody, is this - he's not human."

"So? So what?" Buffy demanded angrily. "Neither was Oz and neither are Spike and Angel!"

"Yeah, and why don't we all just ask Giles how well Angel and his alter-ego have worked out for everyone?"

Everyone paled.

"Oh, okay, so they're all freaks. I got you," Buffy bit out. "But Mr. 'I'm screwing an eleven-hundred year old ex-demon' is completely in the right?"

"Says the woman whose ex butchered nearly half the graduating class and had to be put down like a dog!"

"All right, that's enough!" Spike roared, getting involved for the first time. "Whatever Alec's actual species is, the fact is that he's stood by the lot of you since he arrived and that's good enough for me!"

"Not for me!" Xander retorted.

"Nor me," Angel said quietly.

Buffy whirled around. "What?" she demanded incredulously.

"He's a Keeper demon, Buffy, I've seen them before. They're called the 'Scions of Annihilation' by other demons."

"That's right," Anya piped up, putting on what she hoped was a sincere guise of fear and worry. "Keeper demons consume and obliterate everything in their path: people, animals, even reality itself. They all just suck it up and swallow it whole, like walking black holes."

The blonde Slayer whirled on Anya, clearly ready to strike the other woman.

"Coming from the demon who's spent over a thousand plus years slaughtering unfaithful men, that's almost funny."

"Hey, back off!" Xander growled, stepping in between Buffy and Anya.

"Guys, come on!" Buffy cried out. "Xander, it's you, me, and Wills against the world, remember? Come on, don't do this!"

Anya could not resist the opportunity to press her advantage. "I think as long as Alec is here among us, we're all in danger," she turned to look up at Xander. "I think we should leave."

Xander lowered the crossbow and wrapped an arm around Anya. "We're not leaving honey. He is."

Buffy took three threatening steps towards them both when Faith stepped in to stop her.

"Hey, B, chillax," she said, attempting to placate Buffy. Instead, the other Slayer threw her hands forward, fingers crooked like claws, and aimed for Anya's throat.

"He's my brother!" Buffy screamed. "I am not going to abandon you heartless bitch!"

Faith gritted her teeth as she attempted to restrain her sister Slayer.

DeGanon grabbed Giles's jacket. "You must stop this!" he hissed urgently into the other man's ear

"That's quite enough!" the Watcher snapped. "Xander, you and Anya go over to the other side of the room and shut the bloody hell up, both of you!" Giles then turned to the grappling Slayers. "Buffy, calm yourself, no one is being abandoned. Faith, release her!"

Faith sent Giles a dubious look, but flexed, and pushed Buffy back a few feet to give her some breathing room, releasing her at the same time.

Buffy exhaled hard and glared daggers at Anya before turning to address the others.

"Alec is family, he's a part of our lives and whatever secrets he's been keeping, they're out now and we're all just going to deal with them!"

Angel frowned slightly. Buffy was being remarkably calm about this revelation about her adopted brother, and so was Giles, for that matter, which meant…

"How long have you known Buffy?"

Buffy fixed Angel with a fierce glare.

"What?"

"You and Giles, how long have you known that Alec is a Keeper demon?"

Buffy's moment of hesitation was all it took to condemn her.

"You knew?!" Willow screamed, speaking for the first time. "After what happened with Oz and Tara, you knew and none of you said anything?!"

"Yes, they knew!" Alec yelled back. "They knew and I asked them, I _begged_ them, not to tell anyone, especially you, because I didn't want to see you get hurt!" Alec looked down for a moment. "And because I was afraid."

" 'Afraid'! What do you mean you were 'afraid'?" Willow demanded.

"I was afraid that you would look at me exactly the same way you're looking at me right now," Alec replied softly, taking in everyone else with a steady, cold look. " The way you're all looking at me right now - like a freak, a traitor, a demon …" he brought his eyes back to Willow, "…and no longer a man."

Willow averted her eyes; she just couldn't meet that haunted gaze of the man she'd grown to love. In them, she could see herself being weighed and measured and, deep within herself, she knew she simply could not measure up. The shame of it ate at her.

Dawn approached as Willow turned away.

"I believe in Alec Giles," she said, loud enough for everyone to hear; it was now her turn to address her friends and family. "I didn't know that he was part demon. And I don't care. He's earned my trust, he's earned my faith, he's earned my… lo-… friendship," she corrected hastily, "and for that, I believe in him."

Dawn then walked around Alec, gently touching his arm with her small fingers, to stand behind him, arraying herself against the others.

"He is my son," Giles said quietly and took his place beside Alec.

"He's my brother," Buffy chimed in and took her place beside them.

"Fag the lot of you, he's my mate!" Spike sneered and stood by him.

Faith looked uncertain for a moment, then sighed and smiled slightly, the scar over her eye crinkling.

"Who the hell am I to judge? Between what Buffy says and what I've seen, Alec and I are five by five."

Faith stepped over and stood next to Buffy, who sent the brunette Slayer the warmest smile anyone had ever seen the pair share.

Angel, Xander, Anya, and Willow looked at them from across the room. Though there was only a few feet separating the people, it was suddenly as if a wide chasm had opened up between the two grops.

"The most dangerous of monsters always start with the best of intentions. I've been watching you, Alec, I've seen you fight, and I've seen you kill, that night outside Grigori…" Angel said quietly, "…and I've seen you enjoy it."

"Bloody Hell, _Angelus_…" Spike sneered. "Isn't this a bit of the ol' 'pot and kettle'?"

Angel tilted his head to address his progeny. "You're right, Spike, that's how I can tell. See, he's not like you. You're an idiot, you always have been, but for you it's the violence." The older vampire shifted, returning his gaze to Alec. "For him, it's not the blood, it's the kill. And he'll keep doing it, over and over again, until one day the reason, the 'greater good', is no longer important. And then he'll be just like me."

"He's nothing like you," Buffy spat, her eyes teary. "He does what needs to be done."

"Hey, if the resident pro murderer says there's a new rookie in the pen, I'm inclined to believe him," Xander chimed in. "I always knew Angel was going to be trouble and if any one of you had actually listened to me, maybe Jenny would still be alive. Now, there's a new stray and once again I've got a bad feeling, and this time you are _all_ going to listen to me." Xander looked past Alec to the man's father. "Because, no offense, G-man, I plan on doing a better job protecting my lady than you did yours."

"Drop dead," Alec snarled, outraged at how his father was being assaulted.

"You first, buddy," Xander replied, bringing his crossbow up again.

Alec ignored the weapon and turned his look upon Willow, his cold glare melting into an imploring look at his lover.

"Willow?" he rasped, agony and pleading infusing every syllable of her name.

Willow looked up, her eyes wet with tears.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly and then, very deliberately, stood next to Xander. Xander, for his part, made room for her beside him and smiled.

"It's okay, Wills, really," he assured her.

"I'm sorry, too," was all Alec said, even as the others stared, aghast, at Willow's apparent betrayal.

Anya reached out and put a hand on Xander's arm.

"Dawn…" she whispered quietly to her lover and he took the hint.

"Yeah, come on, Dawn, it isn't safe with him," he said, reaching for her.

…And then everything went to hell.

"Don't touch me!" Dawn cried out, recoiling.

"Get away from her!" Alec roared at the same time, lashing out with a fist and catching Xander across the jaw.

"Xander!"

Willow cried out before flexing her fingers and pointing, saying a string of arcane words. A series of small dark blobs flew from her fingertips towards Alec as the Wicca attempted to protect her childhood friend.

Xander, meanwhile, recovered from the blow and charged at the younger Giles.

Alec could see that the spell his lover had cast would strike the boy instead of himself. Reasoning that his healing factor could handle whatever Willow could throw at him, Alec swept Xander's feet out from under him and turned his own face away from the spell, hoping to minimize the amount of damage it would do to him by giving it only a side profile instead of a full frontal strike.

Seconds later the spell hit him.

Within Willow Rosenberg shame had given way to anger, and anger to hatred. As one of the most powerful witches known to the world, and with vast reserves of her potential still untapped, that hatred and her raw power made the spell she cast stronger than anything anyone assembled had ever seen.

The spell struck Alec in the left side of the face and neck; time stood still for a heartbeat.

Alec slapped a hand over his face to keep the dark goop from splattering upon the others, especially Dawn, who was millimeters away from his face. His remaining eye found hers and there was time for a single look to be shared between them, an instant in which all their feelings, their regrets, and the care they held for each other, was transmitted.

The next moment the light of life, of kindness and humanity, in Alec's good eye flickered and went out, carried away by one crystal clear tear running down his face, like a flood carrying away a drowning child.

Then he began to scream - a loud animal-like wail of agony that set everyone's teeth on edge. He screamed over and over again as the gooey blobs stuck to his face and hand, consumed his flesh, tore at him, devoured and infected every last cell that it had struck, dissolving flesh and bone and boiling away his blood.

"ALEC!" Buffy cried out, reaching towards him.

Alec stumbled away, still screaming and clutching at the ruined half of his face, and fell to his knees near a large grated drain.

Willow looked on, horrified by what she had done, as her lover screamed and cried, slammed his fists and his head into the floor, into the wall, over and over again; did _anything_ to dull the sheer torture wracking his body. Where he struck the wall, it began to dissolve as residue from the redhead's spell struck it.

"What did you DO to him?!" Dawn screamed out.

Even Xander looked freaked, hand reached out towards Willow, who was staring blankly at the whole spectacle.

"WHY!?"

The question exploded into the room as Alec screamed at his lover, removing his hand from his face. The darkness in the room concealed the damage done, but the unscarred side of his face was flushed bright red; the man's teeth were clenched so hard that the porcelain was cracking and shattering, and he foamed and spat in pain-fueled fury. Staggering up to his feet, Alec looked like he was ready to kill everyone in the room.

Xander cried out in alarm at the sight, brought up the crossbow, and fired. The bolt flew past everyone and caught Alec in the shoulder. The younger Giles was pitched backwards and landed heavily on the grate on the floor. It gave away and he was plunged into the dark, his cries of pain fading as he fell.

Giles removed his gun and leveled it square with Xander's eyes.

"This is an enchanted weapon," he said simply. "It is called 'Lily', a nickname given to Alec's mother, and named in honor of her memory. It was reportedly forged with shards of metal that came from the sword of Uriel, the angel of death, and its bullets will kill anything they strike, living or dead, so long as the heart of the person using it is filled with hatred." Giles cocked the hammer. "And right now, Alexander Harris, I hate no person on this planet so much as I hate you."

Xander swallowed quietly, but stood his ground bravely. Everyone held their breaths, waiting to see if the librarian was going to decorate the walls of this chamber with the young man's brain matter.

Giles sighed heavily and uncocked the hammer.

"But murder will not bring back my son," he said finally.

Xander breathed a sigh of relief, right before Rupert cracked him in the skull, hard, with the butt of the gun, dropping him to the ground.

"Xander!" Anya cried out and dropped to her knees to aid her lover.

"On the other hand, beating you senseless holds a certain appeal," Giles added mildly before turning to Willow, who still seemed to be in shock.

"What. Did You Do. To My Son?" Giles asked, spacing each part of the sentence freely.

"The Yersinia Curse," was all Willow said.

"The plague rite! You… stupid, foolish girl!" he spat out, his face red with rage. "Where did you get that spell?!"

"I was just trying to protect Xander," Willow said numbly, clearly not hearing the question.

Giles snarled with impatience, clearly the young girl was in shock and would be of no further use to him. He whirled around.

"We need to get to him immediately! That spell will eat through his body and when it's done with him, it will come after the rest of us!"

"I'm on it!" Buffy yelled.

"No! No one living can go after him; they run the risk of infection."

"Right, then. I'll get him, bring him back, get him patched up, and then I'm going to shove a broken bottle through the faces of a few people here. How does that sound?" Spike growled.

"Fine by me," Dawn said darkly.

"Seconded," Faith added.

"Angel, go with him," Giles instructed. Angel nodded and, as he was walking past, Giles grabbed his arm, stopping him dead. "Bring him back _alive_, Angel, or you won't live to regret it."

Angel said nothing, merely looked down at the other man's grip on his arm. With a deliberate motion, Giles released him and Angel and Spike headed down the drain after Alec.

" 'And more, much more than this, I did it my way'."

Spike's voice echoed hollowly through the sewer tunnel, barely audible over the sounds of rushing water and rats.

"Could you not do that?" Angel asked testily. "It sort of detracts from the whole 'element of surprise' approach."

Spike scoffed. "Yeah, trust me, mate, my boy isn't someone you want to be sneaking up on, even when he hasn't had half his face melted off by his crumpet." Spike gritted his teeth. "Bitch is going to have a lot to answer for when I get a hold of her."

"She was only trying to protect her friend."

"Yeah, and he was only trying to protect Dawn. In case you haven't noticed, the two of them have a weird sort of bond going on."

Angel shot Spike a glare from over his shoulder and nearly stepped on a rat.

"Yes. A man in his early twenties spending that much time fawning over a teenaged girl; we have many names for that kind of 'bond'. Last I heard, though, that was a felony in these parts."

"Says the self-confessed cradle robbing creature of the night ex-boyfriend."

Angel gritted his teeth harder and kicked at another rat as Spike continued to speak.

"Besides, it's not like that. I know Alec, he's a good bloke, no funny business going on with that one. Granted, having your girlfriend nuke your face might call into question one's loyalties." Spike sent Angel a sideways look as they continued deeper down the tunnel. "Though, I'll bet you don't need a reminder about loyalty in the face of greatly upsetting things, what with having a sword shoved through you and being sent to Hell by your ex and all."

Angel whirled on the other vampire. "All right, Spike-"

"Two other things I know about our boy." Spike went right on. "One, I know that this is his favorite song. Some of us prefer our music less whiny than the 'It'll End In Tears' album," Spike taunted. "It's what he and I first bonded over when he came to Sunnydale - Sid Vicious and good scotch. I want Alec to know that we're down here and not actually out to kill him or anything, and I thought making sure he heard his favorite song would help that."

"Sinatra's version was better," Angel growled at Spike as he began to walk ahead. "You said you knew two things about Alec, what's the other thing?"

"He's very, very close by."

Angel stopped and turned around to face the white-haired vampire.

"How do you know?"

Spike smiled nastily and shoved his way past Angel to head deeper down the tunnel.

"No rats."

Angel looked down and, indeed, there were no rats to be found anywhere. In fact the entire area was draped in an oppressive silence and a darkness that hung thick in the air.

Spike cupped his hands over his mouth as Angel reached down into the muck by his feet and grabbed hold of a rusted length of pipe.

"Oy! Alec! You down here, mate? Come on, we can have a scotch and kill your girlfriend or something!" Spike's voice boomed in the now deathly silence that enveloped them.

Suddenly, Angel swung the bar and caught Spike across the back of the head. The blond grunted once and slumped, face first, into the muck and slime coating the floor.

"Sorry, Spike, but like the woman said 'we need to be able to do what needs to be done', and in this case, it might involve putting Alec down for good."

Spike groaned slightly, stirring, and Angel brought the bar up again…

…but it was yanked out of his hands with a sudden, violent jerk.

"Uncalled for," a voice rasped from very close by.

Angel turned as something shot out of the darkness, connected with his jaw, and sent him staggering backwards. A second blow connected with his solar plexus, and a third - a boot this time - connected with his skull, sending him tumbling backwards through an open side portal and into a heap in a pool of water in the middle of a large chamber.

Angel spat out a mouthful of dirty water and tried to get his bearings; he could barely see in the thick subterranean darkness.

"Alec! Come out! We only want to help you!"

A low, quiet laugh filled the chamber and it set Angel's teeth on edge.

"Ah, my own 'guardian Angel', as it were. Tell me, are you planning on helping me like you helped Spike? Thanks, but no thanks. Besides…"

Something collided hard with Angel's chest and sent him sprawling back into the water.

"…what makes you think I need any help?"

Angel got to his feet again, growling, his game face in place.

"Oh, scary," Alec's voice mocked from the darkness.

Angel spun around towards it, but it was no use. The acoustics in the room were terrible and made it sound like a shadowmancer was speaking from all around him.

"I can smell your blood and hear your heartbeat, Dusk," Angel said, emphasizing the alternate name. "I don't need eyes to fight you."

"Oh, good, now I'll feel less guilty about removing them."

Angel growled and spun around, trying to get a bead on Alec's location. He _should_ have been able to hear the other's footfalls in the pool of water that covered the floor, but so far, nothing.

"Willow's spell, its effects-" Angel began.

"-Are getting worse… or better, depending on whether or not you count my body rotting out from under me as a good thing," Alec interjected.

_Got him!_

Angel spun and thrust out with a kick, connecting with something solid in the dark. There was a _whoosh_ of suddenly exhaled air and the splash of a falling form.

"You might have a great deal of training, Dusk, but I have a lot of years on you," Angel said calmly. "and I promise you, I'm more of a creature of the dark than you'll ever be."

The darkness cleared a little bit and Angel could now see Alec getting to his feet from the water.

"Angel, Angel, Angel, haven't you learned by now? It's not the quantity of your years..."

Without warning, Alec cart-wheeled over to Angel and thrust a boot hard up under the vampire's jaw, making him stagger backwards.

"…but the _quality_. And in that vein, I'll take my training over your experience any day."

"Spoken like a true amateur."

Angel's hand snaked out, caught Alec by the scruff of the neck, and hurled him bodily into the wall with a _thud!_

Alec landed in a heap, still chuckling mockingly.

"Why, Angel, you're holding back."

The vampire grabbed a fistful of Alec's hair and hoisted the man to his feet, pushing his face close to the other's to give the young man a good look at his vampiric features.

"Things could get ugly if I don't," Angel replied.

Alec brought his own face closer, letting Angel finally see it.

"I'd be forced to say that they already have," Alec commented.

Angel sucked in a breath in shock. The left side of Alec's face was a gray pulpy mass of rotted tissue and cancerous tumors that pulsed and bulged obscenely. It looked like a melted wax sculpture - the left earlobe, eyelid and all the hair on that side was just gone. Even as Angel watched in sick horror, the masses of cancerous growths throbbed, and pushed bits of wet lumpy flesh and oozing pus out of Alec's face; the flesh and pus fell to the ground with a wet _splat!._ A single black and yellow eye wept pus as it focused on the vampire.

"My God…" Angel whispered.

Alec looked around and up towards the ceiling inquisitively.

"God?" he asked mildly, bringing his left hand, now an oozing, half-melted claw, up to his face to scratch in mock contemplation, trailing away long ropy strands of pus from his face.

"God isn't here."

He then smiled his familiar crooked grin; now one part familiar gesture, one part slobbering lipless obscenity, and hurled Angel away from him.

The vampire scrambled to his feet and went all out, throwing punch after punch, hammering his fists into Alec. Angel could feel Alec's ribs giving way, bones breaking and organs swelling under the onslaught. Alec did his best to defend himself, but the vampire's fury and horror was too much and the scarred young man fell beneath the assault.

"You're pretty spry, Dusk, but you can't dish out the kind of punishment Buffy can," Angel drew back his fist and smashed in Alec's nose. "And you can't withstand it either."

Alec coughed weakly, felt something in his chest break apart, and spat out some blood and slime.

"Oh, I imagine that's true, Angel. Buffy has her tricks… and I have mine."

A tendril of darkness lashed out from the shadows, Angel screamed in pain and fell back as it drew a bloody line across his chest.

Alec began advancing on Angel and, even as the vampire watched, Alec's bones began to knit themselves back together, healing the damage Angel had just done to them.

"You see… while, yes, it's true that I can't hit hard…" Alec explained as another tendril of darkness lashed Angel across the chest, "…I can hit _well_. And you can't heal like I can."

Angel was jerked to his feet by another tentacle and thrown across the room. He slammed hard into the wall, but sprang to his feet and charged at Alec.

"Mistake," Alec said mildly and twitched a finger.

Angel went down in a heap, screaming, and clutched the leg which had been neatly hamstrung by another tendril of darkness.

"For all your skill, Angel, you're still matter. You're flesh, and bone, and blood, and that's all, 'creature of the dark' or not. But I…" Alec lashed out again and again while Angel screamed in pain.

"…I _am_ the dark!"

Angel hobbled up on his good leg and saw Alec just standing there, smiling bemusedly. The contrast between that perfectly normal right side of his face and the grotesquerie that made up the left, made the image all the more terrifying.

"Any questions?"

Angel looked up at him, weary and wounded.

"Yeah, one: what are you going to do without your heart?"

Angel surged forward and, putting all his vampiric might behind the blow, drove a fist into Alec's chest.

…but soon found it was trapped up to the wrist.

Angel gaped at it as Alec looked down, surprise crossing his mangled features. Then he smiled at the vampire.

"My turn. Are you going to miss that hand?" he asked.

Angel began to scream loudly as black ooze enveloped his hand and began to creep up his arm.

"You know," Alec commented, "I'm not much for Irish food, but I have to say - you look good enough to eat!" He threw back his head and cackled – an unhinged, howling laugh – as his blood broke down the bonds that held the vampire's very essence together.

"How does it feel to be on the losing end of the food chain, Angel?" Alec asked wryly.

"_Ignis!" _a voice cried out and bright light flooded the chamber.

Alec whipped around, dislodging Angel from his chest. The vampire fell to the ground, incoherent, his right arm now ending in a stump of half-dissolved flesh.

"Don't hurry off," Alec chided Angel gently and turned to address Willow, who had just entered the room. His face fell at the sight of her.

"No!" he cried out, his voice sounding like his own again for the first time since his scarring, and he seemed to collapse in on himself, hunching over, covering his face and crouching like an animal.

Softly, Willow came over to them both. She took in Angel's state with wide-eyed shock and knelt down to touch him.

"Angel?" she whispered softly.

"Willow… run, he's… dangerous, crazy," was all the vampire could manage through the pain.

Willow, on her hands and knees, reached out to Alec.

"Alec-"

"GET AWAY!"

Alec screamed, bursting at her like an animal and shoving his face in hers. Willow gasped in horror and pulled back in shock.

"Oh merciful Hecate, what have I done to you?" Willow whispered, her lips and face bone white.

"Not 'what', Willow," Alec rasped, averting his face from her. " 'Why'? Why did you do this to me?"

"I thought-"

"You thought I was going to hurt Xander."

Willow nodded a little at that. "That, plus all of this, and your secrets, and it was right after the battle and you almost died and it was all just too much and I freaked out and I am so, so sorry."

Alec turned to face her again, gesturing to his ruined visage. "I don't think 'sorry' is going to fix all this," he said glumly. "Why does me keeping secrets matter so much to you, Willow?"

"Because I'm keeping some, too. Some very, very large ones," Willow looked down. "Ones that, if anyone found out…"

"…they'd look at you like a monster," Alec finished.

"Yeah."

"Like the way you and the others were looking at me."

Willow didn't say anything, she just nodded and started to cry, choking on little girl sobs.

With his unwounded hand, Alec reached out and stroked her hand gently. Willow reached out to him and the darkness seemed to retreat from her hand, almost as if her presence pained it.

Then, lightening fast, Alec hissed at her like a snake and drew back, his face collapsing in on itself into a gray mask of shadows, rot, and fury.

"Liar!" He snarled.

"No! No, no, no …" Willow shook her head imploringly. "Please…"

"You love Xander do you? Do you know that you nearly killed him, that if I hadn't knocked him away he would have wound up looking like _this_? Your precious _Xander?!" _Alec screamed at her, gesturing to his hideous face.

Willow just cried, she didn't have the words.

"Alec…" Angel rasped.

Alec turned his head and hissed at him.

"What?!"

"There's two of you, now. I can hear it in your voice - one that loves, the real you, and one that kills, the thing you're becoming, 'the dark' just like you said. You have a choice now - choose the light, Alec. Choose life and love. Choose Willow, and Buffy. Choose your father." Angel pursed his lips. "Choose Dawn."

"Dawn…" Alec whispered, his voice shifting back and the color returning to his face.

"Willow loves Xander, Alec. Like you, she's being pulled in two directions." Angel cast a look above him. "Like all of us. And right now, if you want peace, you need to give it to her first. You have to forgive, not for your wounds, but because you don't, and never will, have all of her heart. Just like she'll never have all of yours either."

Alec looked down at his hands, one a normal fist, the other a monstrous claw.

"A choice," Alec mused softly, turning to look at Willow. "Is all of this true? Is this one of your 'secrets'?"

Willow just nodded. "He's been my best friend all of my life and I love him."

"And me?"

Willow reached out and took his scarred hand in her own, Alec tried to draw back, but she held it firmly, eyes never wavering as she met his.

"I love you more than life itself," she said with all the conviction she held within herself as she reached up a hand to cradle his scarred cheek.

"I believe in Alec Giles."

Alec stared at her for a long time and then nodded as he climbed to his feet.

Angel groaned and tried to get to his feet, stumbling. Alec turned and saw this, he gestured to the crippled vampire.

"Help him," he instructed Willow.

Willow looked up at him with a moment's hesitation and Alec nodded to reassure her. Nodding back, Willow left Alec propped against a wall and helped drag Angel up to his feet.

"Oof! You're heavy! How can someone who lives on a liquid diet be so heavy?" she demanded.

"It's all those rocks in his head, which I plan on splitting open and emptying out!" a voice cried out and Spike came bolting into the room, brandishing the same length of rusted metal piping Angel had used to brain him with earlier.

"Spike, no," Alec called out.

"Why the bloody hell not?!"

"Because my sister would never forgive you, and you know it."

Spike gritted his teeth and turned to get a good look at Alec.

"Sod bloody all! You look like hell on toast!" the blond vampire cried out.

Alec just nodded and Spike came over to help his friend.

"Easy mate, I've got you."

Wounded and exhausted, the foursome made their way out of the chamber and back towards their friends.

"Whoa, boy!"

Xander's startled cry was what got all their attention as the four friends made their way back to the others. Everyone got a good look at what Willow's spell had done to Alec and there were shocked gasps and cries coming from all around.

"Alec, are you okay?" Dawn asked in an aching tone, not even realizing how silly the question was.

"Dawnie, help Alec get cleaned up, okay?" Willow asked.

Dawn didn't say anything as Spike helped her get Alec's arm over her thin shoulders and the three of them led the wounded man out.

"And the spell?" Giles asked quietly.

Willow shook her head. "The spell runs on hate, like most black magic."

"Meaning that as soon as you stopped hating Alec…"

"The toxicity of the spell ceased, yes. I'm familiar with the Hermetics behind most of the black arts." Willow replied, nodding, and then sighed, looking up at Giles.

"I need your help, Rupert," she said, using Giles's given name for the first time since anyone could remember.

Buffy snorted. "Yeah, Wills, I'm sure horrifically scarring his son is going to-"

Giles held up a silencing finger and Buffy fell silent, glaring daggers at the red-haired witch.

"Go on," was all Giles said.

Willow sighed. "I've been getting stronger, magically, but I can't control it. What happened here tonight shouldn't have happened."

"The hell you say," Spike sneered.

Willow ignored him and pressed on.

"I need to learn to control my emotions and gain the discipline I need in order to master the magic, not let it master me, because if I can't do that, then I'm going to be a danger to myself and everyone else around me." Willow sent an aching look around the room. "Alec's not the dangerous one, I am."

"Wills, c'mon-" Xander began.

"AND," Willow continued, right over his words, "if I that happens, if I become all evil and out of control, like I was tonight, then I'm going to have to leave," she looked at everyone in turn, "all of you. For good."

"Willow, no, I can't let that happen," Xander interrupted again and this time Willow faced him.

"I love you, Xander, I always have and I always will," she said simply. "And I know you love me back."

Anya looked ready to scream at this and Xander didn't look much better.

Willow continued. "But as much as I love you, I love Alec more and he's going to need me, especially over the next few days. Which means he has to come first; _him_, not you."

"Oh, come on, you see the way he moons over Dawn. You're telling me you're going to just give over your heart to that guy when he's pining for a pre-teen? We all see it!"

"One, Dawn is not a pre-teen, she's a teenaged girl and not much younger than you and I were when we first met Buffy and all this 'life and death, fighting the forces of darkness' business started. And, yes, Xander, that's exactly what I'm going to do."

"But I-"

"-Have no say in the matter. He makes me feel loved and, really, that's all I need from now on. And if you're really my friend, you'll give me your blessing."

Xander folded his arms and smoldered. "Guess I don't really have much of a say, do I?"

Anya hit him upside the head, hard. "Don't be a jerk," she chided.

Willow smiled, serenely and a little indulgently; she was being forced to grow up and her childhood friend was worried about being left behind.

"No, Xander, you don't have a choice about my loving Alec, but you can choose if you want to be my friend still."

With that, Willow left the room to go check on Alec, leaving the rest of the room speechless, surprised, impressed, and in at least one case, heartbroken.

Alec offered no resistance as Dawn and Spike led him into the large industrial shower.

"You kids going to be all right?" the blond vampire asked.

Dawn blew out a lock of hair as she turned to answer him. "Yeah, I think so."

Spike nodded. "Good, I'm going to go check on your sister, won't be a tick."

"Okay."

For a second, Spike considered making a lewd crack about Dawn's 'fantasies coming true' now that she had the opportunity to gawk at Alec_ au natural_, yet, somehow, it just didn't seem… appropriate.

_I'm going soft_ was the first thing Spike thought, followed by, _Tough bastard, I'll give him that_ as it pertained to his wounded friend.

Alec offered no resistance as Dawn stripped off his shirt. Most of the pus and sewage had dried to a cake-like layer over his face and clothing, but the sores on his face no longer wept and his left eye no longer streamed vitreous humor and pus. Instead, both eyes just stared blankly ahead, not really seeing, or perhaps seeing something only meant for his eyes.

Carefully, Dawn reached out to stroke his hair and Alec drew back, frightened and like a wounded child.

"Shhh, it's okay," she whispered to him.

Alec just shuddered and tried to curl in on himself, the trauma of the night's events crashing down upon him like waves, paralyzing him.

Gently, she worked the rest of his clothes off him and half-carried, half-coaxed him into the shower. She placed her hand in front of the shower nozzle and turned the water on full blast, gritting her teeth and wincing as first freezing water, then scalding, struck her hand before she found the temperature she was comfortable putting Alec under. She stepped under the water in all her clothes, without a care.

Alec winced perceptibly at being exposed to the water but otherwise remained still. Carefully, almost reverently, she took a towel and wiped at his back, running her small hands over scars and burns and wounds, still fresh and puckered from the battle with the cultists, the fight against the Golobulan and others whose origins were a complete mystery to her.

"Why do you have to push so hard?" she whispered quietly, "Why do you _do_ this to yourself?"

"Because he does what needs to be done," a voice called out.

Dawn whipped her head around to face Willow. Instantly, she crouched in what she hoped was something akin to a threatening 'wild-dog' position.

"I will kill you if you touch him," was all Dawn said.

Willow sighed and nodded. "I've earned that, I'm so sorry, Dawnie."

" 'Sorry'? You're 'sorry'? Look at him! Look what you've done to him! You're supposed to love him and take care of him, but now he's broken and hurting and YOU did that to him you… bitch!"

Willow looked momentarily taken aback by Dawn's use of profanity - she didn't swear often - but Dawn wasn't done with her.

"I would have never done the things you have-"

"-if you had been dating him instead of me?" Willow asked quietly.

Dawn stopped dead and looked over at the man in question, he was still hunched over, staring blankly at nothing.

"I love him," Dawn said simply.

"I know. I love him, too," Willow replied.

Dawn snorted and rolled her eyes derisively, then looked back at the other woman.

"Yeah, well, he'll have a permanent reminder of your 'love' for him from now on."

"You can still love him, even looking all… bad?" Willow asked in a strangely imploring tone as she gestured at him.

"Without a moment's hesitation. You?"

"The same."

"Huh," Dawn scoffed, but she did return her focus to Alec, cleaning off the blood and slime from his body.

Willow came over and Alec drew away from them both, shuffling and wide eyed.

"I don't think he likes you very much," Dawn said coldly.

Willow looked crestfallen, but sighed and nodded, instead eased herself down to sit by the edge of the shower.

"He loves you, too, you know," Willow said quietly.

Dawn turned to glare at Willow. "Don't be a witch; no pun intended."

Willow shook her head. "I'm not, he does."

Dawn sighed and gently stroked back Alec's wet hair, squeezing more water out of the towel and letting it wash over his skin.

"It doesn't matter; we can't be together for, oh, so many reasons."

"The age thing is a problem," Willow conceded.

"So is the girlfriend thing," Dawn shot back. "He's crazy about you when you're not melting his face off." She sent Willow a worried look. "Will the scars- ?"

"It'll look less bad as time goes on, but yeah, he's going to be scarred for life, physically, and probably in his spirit as well. That spell is pretty horrific."

"Well, you are just so talented!" Dawn spat.

"I'm so sorry, Dawnie, I lost control. It won't happen again."

"You're damn right, because if you ever try to hurt him again-"

"I know! I know! You'll kill me." Willow sighed. "Or Buffy will kill me, or Giles will kill me, or Spike will kill me. There's a long line."

"Comes with being popular," a new voice called out.

Both girls turned to see Buffy entering the room.

"How is he?" Buffy asked about her brother.

Willow sighed. "He'll live," she reported. "But at the moment he's not terribly responsive and the damage down the road could be worse than what happened to his face."

"Yeah, Angel filled me in a little bit, said Alec turned bad and things went ugly down there."

"Wonder if he holds a candle to Angelus?" Dawn put in, a little testily.

Buffy went rigid, then sighed.

"No idea, I guess we'll just have to see what happens with him," the Slayer lamented, reaching out to gently stroke her brother's hair. He didn't shy away from her, but neither did he respond and she looked crest-fallen at that.

"He can't take much more of this, no one can," Buffy said quietly.

"He'll do what needs to be done," Willow put in.

"Is dying one of those things that need to be done?" Dawn asked bitterly.

"Sometimes," came Buffy's ominous answer.

Dawn looked horrified at the thought, but composed herself.

_He is NOT dying, not if I have anything to say about it_

"So…" Buffy drawled, "I'm noticing a lot of male nudity here."

Dawn and Willow exchanged very slight smiles, appreciating Buffy's attempt at humor.

"Had I known he looked so good naked, I might not have agreed to the whole 'platonic sister' relationship as quickly as I did."

"Get in line," Willow replied.

"It forms to the left," Dawn added with all seriousness.

Chuckling, Buffy looked at the two girls. "So, uh, Wills, you're cool with...?" She gestured at Dawn sponge bathing the redhead's boyfriend.

Willow shrugged. "It is what it is. She takes good care of him," she said simply and Dawn smiled a little at that. "Besides, how old were _you_, when you saw your first guy in the buff, Buff?" Willow grinned a little. "Hey, I said 'buff, Buff'."

"Yeah, we heard you, and I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it would incriminate me," Buffy replied evenly.

The three girls shared a very quiet laugh, healing each other even as they worked to heal this man they all loved.

Buffy cleared her throat to speak. "So, are you saying, even now with him hurt, you two would-?"

"Oh, yeah."

"In a heartbeat."

The girls laughed and blushed. It felt good to just be together and be neither afraid nor envious of the other.

The moment was shattered by Alec leaping to his feet and screaming like a man trapped in a nightmare.

"What? What's happening?!" Dawn cried out.

"I don't know!" Willow replied, trying to get a grip on the wildly flailing and screaming man.

"He's freaking out!" Buffy yelled and reached out to grab her brother's thrashing form, holding him close to her. "Shhhh, shhhh, it's okay Alec. It's okay."

Dawn and Willow joined Buffy under the shower and three of them, in their sopping wet clothes, clung tightly to the fourth as he wept and rocked back and forth like a small child trapped in a nightmare.

"I believe in Alec Giles," Buffy said softly, squeezing the arms of Dawn and Willow, the women she regarded as her own sisters.

"I believe in Alec Giles," Dawn repeated, squeezing the hands of the other two women.

"I believe in Alec Giles," Willow finished, adding the pressure of her hands to that of the other two women.

The night passed, the three friends, sisters, and companions held their common love. Brother and lover, friend and soul mate to them all; they cradled him like a child and eased his pain and sorrow and, in the process, their own.

And so it was that injuries inflicted upon them, and by them, at their very worst, were in turn mended by them all, at their very best, through bonds of strength, and tears, and love.


	25. Chapter 22 Pan

Chapter 18

**Chapter 22**

**Pan**

Willow slowly closed the door to Alec's room and turned, finding Xander standing there.

"Hey, how is he?" he asked quietly.

"He's been better, but he's sleeping now. Buffy and Dawn are with him to make sure he doesn't freak out any more and hurt himself," Willow replied.

"Yeah, we could all hear him screaming," the young man shuddered. "Not a happy sound."

"Yeah."

"Wills, I'm sorry about, you know, everything."

Willow smiled slightly at her childhood friend and tousled his hair. "I know and it's okay, a lot of that was stuff that's been building up since the days of Oz."

"I never did thank Alec, you know, for knocking me out of the way of that spell."

Willow sighed. "That was a really awful thing I did."

"No argument here."

Willow glared at him and Xander smiled weakly. "But, hey, now you know…"

"…and knowing is half the battle," Willow finished wryly. "Ah, yes, the wisdom of G.I. Joe and afternoons spent waiting for your parents to get home from work in between sessions of playing doctor."

Xander grinned lopsidedly; he'd never actually had the heart to tell Willow that taking out medical textbooks and diagnosing each other diseases was not the typical way children played "doctor", and she remained, to this day, in the dark.

Willow gestured past Xander towards the main room.

"So, what's going on over there?"

Xander looked back. "Oh, DeGanon is putting together a feast in our honor." The carpenter looked very pleased about this. "We get to be fed and told how awesome we are."

Willow looked concerned and she shot a look back at Alec's room. "What about-?"

"Giles and DeGanon are telling everyone Alec was maimed in battle and needs rest; the rest of the gypsies dig the whole 'Klingon honorable wounding' thing so there shouldn't be any problems there."

Willow chewed at her lower lip. 'Maimed in battle' was certainly a creative spin on the truth. She couldn't help but wonder when their once sternly disapproving and tweed-clad parental figure had become so adapt at obfuscating the truth.

_Well, now I know where Alec gets it from,_ she thought glumly.

Hours later that night, they had all assembled in the meeting hall, which had been cleaned and transformed into a kind of massive fest hall. A huge wooden table dominated the room; it had been moved by several gypsies and two Slayers. The table was laid out extravagantly with fruit, baskets of bread, roasted meat, wine and water, and all manner of confectionaries. DeGanon sat at the head of the table, draped in his finest Romanian silks. Buffy and Giles sat on either side of him, followed by the rest of the Scooby gang, surviving gypsies, and youths.

DeGanon raised his glass. "A toast!" he cried.

Everyone raised their glasses.

"To the Slayer and to their companions, who fought and bled by our sides! From this day forth, let all who sit at this table be regarded as family of the tribe Spaarti!"

There were cheers as everyone drank from their goblets.

Angel sat down a goblet of water and spoke quietly. "Does that include everyone?"

There was a hush as the gypsies turned to regard the vampire that had so wronged them, so long ago. DeGanon thought for a while, then lifted his glass again.

"Let it be, from this moment on, that the tales of the vampire Angelus and his brutality be wiped clean. Instead, let the tales of the vampire, Angel, and his heroism this day, replace them," he declared solemnly.

Everyone lifted their glasses again as Angel looked down, touched, a small smile on his lips.

"Hear, hear!" Xander cried out, trying to break the solemn atmosphere that had descended onto the feast. The table laughed as Anya sent him a 'You're so cute,' look across the table.

"This fare is truly sumptuous, Lord DeGanon," Giles spoke up. "But I'm afraid time is of the essence."

DeGanon nodded, made a sound of agreement through a mouthful of food, and gestured.

"Tomorrow, after we have all rested, I will take you to Pan, who is our most talented technomancer. I am sure he will be able to decipher the sigil." DeGanon's face split into a broad grin. "But for now - eat! Eat and grow strong, my sisters and brothers!" he gestured to the table. "Then honor us with your presence for the day. We have many beds and all are warm and firm!"

Xander picked that moment to yawn loudly, making everyone laugh.

"Sleep sounds very doable," he said wearily.

Faith nodded. "I could go for a little horizontal sabbatical myself," she commented.

DeGanon nodded, assuring the group. "Then eat your fill and you will be shown to your beds."

There were several happy sounds at his proclamation as the assembled heroes ate their fill.

Suddenly a door banged open. Everyone jumped at the sound and turned.

Alec limped into the room at a slow, painful shuffle. The left side of his face, neck and chest were heavily bandaged and his arm was in a sling. Bare-chested, with a thin blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a shawl, he padded into the gathering room which had grown deathly quiet at his arrival; people looked down and away, or focused on their wine or food, rather than gape slack-jawed at the disfigured youth.

Carefully, he took a goblet of wine from the table with his good hand and raised it up, taking in all those assembled with a look from his good eye.

"To the wounded," he rasped, "and the fallen, and to those that gave all they could and more - thank you."

"I'll drink to that," Buffy declared loudly, helping to shake off the sepulchral atmosphere her brother had brought to the room.

He smiled slightly and turned to her, raising his glass to her in a silent toast.

Dawn tentatively picked up her glass and raised it to him in toast, shyly, a tentative smile on her lips. Willow did the same and the three girls exchanged a look of pleasure at Alec's recovery.

Alec turned back to address the Romani.

"These men were brave and trusted in my ability to lead them and to see them through safely. Would that I could have…"

He frowned then, uncertain, as if looking for a word he couldn't find. The others shared confused looks.

"Would that I could have-"

…and with a crash, he fell backwards, slamming hard into the table and slumping into a sitting position.

His sister was the first to reach him and she placed a strong hand on his wounded arm, then drew her hand back with a gasp as she felt something _wriggle _underneath the bandages.

Alec saw the look and was pierced by a deep sense of shame and self-loathing.

"Don't touch me!" he hissed at Buffy.

Buffy pursed her lips together and got a solid grip on the man, shoving down her revulsion.

"You're not the boss of me," she said impudently as she hauled the man to his feet and, along with the others, helped her brother carefully into a chair. "You need to eat."

"Haven't been able to eat much lately," Alec said, agreeing.

He took a few experimental bites of roast and smiled, pleasantly surprised that he was able to keep it down. The others began eating anew as DeGanon smiled broadly.

"To the Dark General, who honors our victorious dead and shows us that strength lay not in flesh but in what lays beneath," he declared loudly as he raised his glass to toast Alec.

Alec returned the gesture, but his chewing slowed as an unpleasant thought occurred to him.

_What lays beneath, indeed…_

An hour or so later, exhausted, Alec and Willow dragged themselves back into their makeshift bed, and collapsed. Willow smiled drowsily and wrapped her arms around him. He smiled and stroked her arm, then stopped to peer at his own intently.

The arm had sprung blades earlier that night when Dawn had been in danger. These weapons had never appeared before. Was this some work of her being the Key and in danger and him reacting in some strange new way? Or was it simply because they were both scared out of their minds at the time? He sighed and closed his eyes, letting sleep take him.

The group got underway shortly before sundown, each of them having desperately needed sleep. DeGanon led them through a myriad of sewer tunnels, before climbing up a ladder and lifting a manhole cover. Climbing to the street, DeGanon helped Buffy up out of the sewer. The Slayer stretched her arms and inhaled deeply.

"My GOD, I never thought I'd be so happy to see the sky again," she exclaimed.

Faith, Giles, Willow, Xander, and Anya followed.

"Yeah, nothing like spending a night in the sewer to make you appreciate the merits of fresh air," Xander commented wryly, chuckling.

DeGanon started back down the hole, then hesitated to give final instructions.

"I will have Spike and Angel meet you back at the club, after your meeting with Pan." He gestured towards what looked like an abandoned warehouse. "Just go in there. He's down the first flight of stairs, he'll be expecting you." DeGanon smiled slightly. "Just do not let his appearance startle you," he added enigmatically.

Buffy frowned.

"What do you mean his-" she started to ask, but DeGanon had disappeared back down the hole.

The older Slayer sighed and turned to Giles.

"Giles? Why is everyone so weird?" she asked plainly.

Giles shrugged. "Because God has a very distinct sense of humor?" he offered weakly.

Buffy chuckled and turned back to the decrepit warehouse.

"Looks cozy, huh, B?" Faith commented.

Buffy snorted in reply. "A regular love nest. Think there'll be any trouble?" she asked, turning to Giles once more.

The Watcher shook his head.

"No. Like DeGanon said, Pan is expecting us," he replied.

Angel quietly walked over to them.

"We're part of the tribe now, Buffy," the vampire interjected. "They won't betray us for any reason," he finished solemnly, still in awe of his newfound exoneration in the eyes of the Romani.

Buffy nodded.

"All right, let's go get this thing unraveled so we can hurry up and nuke the Hellmouth," she replied, heading towards the warehouse.

The interior was dimly lit, dust an inch thick settled against all available surfaces. Weeds and crabgrass hung like curtains around the room. Anya brushed some away.

"Well, I'll say this for this Pan, his interior decorating skills are sorely lacking," she muttered.

Xander smirked. "All bow, the Martha Stewart of the demon world has spoken."

He bowed sardonically, earning a nasty look from Anya. Buffy shushed them as she knocked on a grime-covered door, sending dust flying up into her face and causing her to cough.

"It's open!" a voice from the other side of the door said.

Buffy gave the doorknob a hard twist and pulled the door open… and fell back suddenly as a wave of humidity washed over her. She frowned in disbelief and stared at the other side of the door - it was drenched in condensation. She gestured for the others to wait there as she, Willow, who had the stone, and Giles descended down into the basement.

Willow inhaled deeply. "Mmm… I love how it's smells in here. It's so fresh and alive," she commented.

"Thank you," the voice called out from the bottom of the stairs.

Buffy crouched down and peered out from the stairwell. A young man sat in a chair, surrounded by computers and plants. He had deep brown skin and straight hair that, unless Buffy was mistaken, was a deep green. He was seated in a chair that was completely covered in vines and a blanket was casually draped over his lap. He didn't get up as he gestured for them to come over and be social. He smiled up at the three.

"Hi!" he greeted cheerfully, sticking out a hand. "I'm Pan," he introduced himself.

Buffy took his hand, noting how odd the skin felt; the texture was very rough. She frowned in puzzlement before smiling in return.

"Hi, I'm Buffy," she gestured. "This is Giles and Willow."

Pan grinned.

"Ah, the Slayer, her Watcher, and the mighty witch - I've heard so much about you. Please," he gestured to a few stools that were also entwined with thick green vines.

Buffy carefully swept one clean before sitting down. Willow was still gaping at her surroundings.

"This place is amazing! It's like a greenhouse," she closed her eyes and inhaled the clean air. "And I _love_ this air."

Pan grinned and gestured to a row of humidifiers.

"They keep the air moist for the plants."

He gestured to a vast number of potted plants surrounding the room, now wildly overgrown and yet still possessing a certain untamed beauty to them.

"You're a gardener?" Buffy asked, suddenly wondering if perhaps DeGanon had sent them to the wrong person.

Pan chuckled.

"I'm a lot of things. Like a tree, my interests branch in many different directions." He gestured to the computer screens. "I've always believed that Mother Nature and technology can work hand in hand together." He patted the vine-encrusted monitor with something resembling affection. "I've tended my gardens well, both of root and vine, and of silicone and plastic." He turned back to the group. "But I understand you have something for me to look at?" he asked mildly.

Willow snapped herself back into reality as she fished around in her pocket for the gem. She pulled it out and held it before them. The gem flared to life displaying the mystical fractal before them. Pan put his unusually long fingers to his chin in thought as he peered at it.

"Hmm, yes, that's definitely gypsy magic, but," he frowned, "I don't see how any gypsy could have had access to something this elaborate. It's like a Monet done in Crayola," he frowned up at them. "Where did you get this again?" he asked.

"A very long story, I'm afraid," Giles replied. "What did you mean by 'a Monet in Crayola?"

Pan turned back to the ghostly fractal.

"For information as… elaborate… as this is, using something as crude as Gypsy magic or graphical representation, such as encoding, is hardly efficient." He put his hands together. "It's like taking a diesel engine and sticking it into a golf cart. It'll work, just not very well. Magic of this sort should not be contained in such crude methods of conveyance, especially when there are much more suitable methods of expression."

"Such as?" Giles asked.

Pan looked up at him and struggled to explain.

"Powerful magic, _seriously_ powerful magic, like this here, can not be recorded conventionally; it would fill entire libraries of books if someone tried to break it down into words. So, you can do other things with it: you can turn it into a picture, like this one here, you can forge it into an artifact, you can even inscribe it into someone's soul, turning that person into sort of a living spell book."

"Like the Key?" Buffy asked, trying to be casual.

Pan snorted and nodded.

"THE Holy Grail of construct magic," he replied.

Giles frowned. "Construct magic?"

Pan nodded.

"Yeah, it goes back to what I was talking about earlier about truly powerful magic. Some spells are so potent that they actually attract life force. So, you can have a tree or an animal that is actually nothing more than a very powerful spell that evolved into a life form. It may not even be aware that it is living magic." He paused for thought. "The Key is like that. It is vast magical power that was able to grow beyond its normal limitations. No one knows who made the Key, certainly nothing that had a body, but as the Key grew and matured, it became more like a living thing than a magical formula. It existed for eons accumulating more life force, eventually it was, well… born into the world, having conjured up enough life force to manifest physically in this world."

"Dawn, my sister, she's the Key," Buffy informed him.

Pan's green eyes opened in shock.

"The Key is here?" he asked.

Buffy nodded. "She doesn't have a clue as to what she is. All we know is that we need her, and a couple of other things, to destroy the Hellmouth. Also, the Hellmouth needs her in order to escape from underground," she explained.

Pan shook his head in wonder.

"Incredible, the Key - one of the most powerful creations of magic ever! And it's on this plane of existence!" he laughed and shook his head. "I wish I could see her."

Buffy shrugged. "Why not? She's with the gypsies, taking care of a sick friend. We could go up and make introductions."

Pan smiled indulgently.

"I don't think _that_," he pulled the blanket slowly off his lap, "would be entirely successful," he finished wryly.

Buffy and Willow looked down and gasped; Giles leapt to his feet and stared in wonder. Below Pan's waist, his body terminated into a stump.

A large brown and green tree stump.

For a while, Buffy just stared in awe at the massive roots that made up the stump of wood growing out of the earth and ending in the grinning person in the chair. She could see vines growing out of the base of the stump; her eyes followed them and she looked straight up, gasping. Above her was an intricate latticework of vines and roots, completely covering the ceiling.

Willow gaped and turned her gaze back to Pan, who grinned, showing green teeth.

"Like I said, some constructs become animals… or plants," he informed them.

Buffy stared at him, slack-jawed.

"You're a plant?!" she asked incredulously.

Pan shook his head.

"No, I'm an incantation, a magical construct that evolved into a plant, and from a plant," he gestured to his human upper torso, "into this charming person you see before you. Aloe for blood, bark for skin and grass for hair."

He shook his head and, with a start, Buffy realized that the reason his skin had felt odd was simply because that it wasn't skin, just as the dark green hair on his head wasn't hair, but grass.

Giles sat back down, stunned.

"So, you were... an incantation?" he asked cautiously.

Pan nodded.

"I was once a nature elemental spell. A coven of nature priestesses crafted me to defend their land. As time went on, I became more than a spell - I achieved sentience. From there it was pretty simple to grow a body." He smiled wryly. "Of course, it's very easy to get carried away. There was a time where I was a forest several acres large. This form," he smiled wryly, "is much more portable."

Willow was still stunned. "You were a forest?" she asked.

Pan nodded.

"You can never imagine how it felt to be home for thousands of creatures. The feeling of rain on my leaves, the way a beetle burrowing into my bark tickled," he grinned. "It was amazing."

"So, why did you 'uproot' yourself?" Buffy asked, punning.

Pan got the joke and grinned, flashing his green 'teeth'.

"Well, Rome was advancing and doing a lot of damage to the landscape so I packed myself into some flowers and sent my seeds blowing across the winds. One of them just happened to land in Romania, near the Spaarti tribe. I made introductions as soon as I grew a mouth, they took a clipping off me, brought me here, planted me, weaved a little magic, and here I am."

"Wait a second, _ROME_?" Buffy asked, askance. "Just how old are you?"

Pan shrugged. "Couple of millennia, not too shabby compared to some redwoods I know."

Giles shook his head in disbelief.

"So, you can just plant your seed anywhere and you grow?" he asked.

Pan nodded. "Yup. My name is Legion for I am many," he replied grinning.

Buffy just shook her head.

"Gypsies, talking plants, thousand year old Slayers, crystal animals…" She turned to Giles. "Why didn't we stay in Sunnydale, where all there were, were your nice garden-variety vampires, werewolves, and hyena people?" She looked back at Pan. "No offense," she added hurriedly.

Pan grinned. "I'm a tough shrub to offend. Now, then." He started hitting a few keys with his long brown fingers. "Let's see if we can translate this thing." He continued tapping the keys in rapid succession before frowning.

"Well, it's a map, along with one doozy of an incantation," he replied.

Buffy peered over at the screen and frowned at a round shiny sphere.

"That's a map?" she commented incredulously.

Pan frowned before sighing in understanding.

"You mammals with your underdeveloped senses; it's a wonder you made it past hunting and gathering."

Grinning, he tapped a few keys, ignoring the look of polite outrage on the Slayer's face. The silvery ball unwrapped, becoming flat, clearly showing a network of lines leading to…

Pan pointed at the screen. "There we go! 'X' marks the spot," he informed them. "No applause for the miracle man, please."

Buffy shot him a wry look. "How about I throw some Miracle-Gro or compost?"

Pan grinned. "Mmm, fertilizer, yummy…"

Willow made a face as Buffy turned back to the screen.

"Okay, so where is it?" she asked.

Pan frowned up at the screen.

"Looks like it may actually be here in the city," he tapped a few more keys. "Underground in a vast subterranean… uh-oh," Pan stopped, frowning.

" 'Uh-oh?' What do you mean 'uh-oh?' " Buffy demanded.

Pan sighed.

"Well, it's close by, but it's not the most accessible of places." He looked up at Buffy. "It's smack dab in the middle of the Lazarus cult's holy burial ground." He exhaled hard and Buffy felt a wave of exhaustion washing over her.

"Let me guess, this Lazarus cult frowns upon tourists?" she asked, her voice full of dread.

Pan put a finger to his chin thoughtfully.

"You could say that. They have a tendency to mummify intruders alive and bury them."

Pan turned to the group, as all three of them had looks of utter despair on their faces.

"It's never something simple," Buffy complained.

Giles sighed and took off his glasses, pinching at the skin above his nose.

"Let's… not lose all hope, yet, Buffy." He turned to Pan. "I thought the Lazarus cult was a myth."

Pan shook his head.

"Wishful thinking. They practice their shtick out past the Khulghaani's territory, who, incidentally, won't go anywhere _near_ the place, claim it's haunted. Taking into account what I've heard about the Lazaraens' practices, I'm inclined to believe them."

Buffy sighed. "So what demon do THEY worship?" she asked wearily.

Pan shook his head.

"Oh, no, nothing like that. They don't worship demons," he scoffed. "Don't be absurd."

Buffy's eyes perked a little.

"Really?" she asked. _Maybe this wouldn't be so bad._

"Nope. The Lazaraens are necrophiliacs. They worship death and the dead," he replied.

Buffy groaned and sank her head into her hands. Willow looked ill.

"You mean they…" she just couldn't make herself say it, "…with DEAD people?" she asked, aghast.

Pan shrugged.

"Don't know. All I do know is their leader, Mercurio, has been searching for the secret to life beyond the grave for quite some time," he informed them.

Buffy just snorted, not taking her hands from her face.

"Why don't they just go dig themselves up a vampire?" she commented bitterly.

There was a prolonged silence and Buffy slowly raised her head from her hands to bore her gaze into Pan's face.

"No…" she whispered dreadfully, getting to her feet. Pan just nodded. "VAMPIRE death-worshippers?" she asked, appalled.

"Makes sense. If you want to learn about death, you first need to die," Pan explained.

Buffy groaned and sank her head deeper into her hands. Giles cleared his throat.

"These vampires, they're magicians?" he asked.

Pan shook his head. "Nope. Necromancers, dealing with things like bones and blood and reanimation and wraiths and ghosts and stuff. Creepy bunch," he informed the Watcher.

Buffy laughed bitterly.

"Of course. Why not? We've had everything else on this trip, why not a bunch of death worshipping vampires?" The Slayer asked, exasperated.

She sat down as Pan patted her leg.

"Listen. For the most part, the Lazaraens are scholars; supposedly, they're not much for actual fighting."

Buffy didn't even bother to look up as Willow said exactly what the blonde Slayer was thinking.

"No, they probably have zombies and ghouls and mummies to fight for them," she toned in glumly.

Pan blushed, his cheeks turning a ruddy green, rather than red.

"Well, yes, there is that," he admitted reluctantly.

Hitting a button, a copy of the map began to print out, followed by a page with the spell translated into English. Pan tore it off the printer and handed it to Buffy, who took it grudgingly, still fairly unhappy with the most recent turn of events.

"I've done a little touch up work on the spell," he began. "Normally, it would have taken a LOT longer to convert it to written word, but I've seen spells like this before, so I took a few shortcuts. It's a tracking spell; it homes in on a specific magical resonance usually emitted by a place or an artifact. What makes it so powerful is that this thing will track it _anywhere_ - this country, this planet, this galaxy, other planes of existence. If this artifact that you're looking for exits, this thing will find it."

He inhaled deeply.

"Anyhow, there's an entrance into the Deadlands above ground, in a cemetery, unsurprisingly." Pan sighed. "Just tell DeGanon you're looking for a passageway to the Lazaraens territory, and, you know, assure him that you haven't completely lost your mind, and it should be all right."

Buffy favored him with a glare. "Thanks," she replied dryly.

She turned to go. Pan reached out and gently touched her wrist.

"Listen, I've known a _lot_ of Slayers in my time. Your kind seems to have a knack for beating the odds." Pan grinned and regarded her friends. "And from what I've heard on the grapevine regarding last night's fun and games, you run with a pretty tough crowd, so, don't give up. Who knows?" He winked at her. "You may get some help along the way."

Buffy smiled and stroked the rough bark over his hand.

"Thanks, you're a nice plant… or spell… or whatever," she flustered.

Pan grinned and waved her away.

"I'll settle for being a nice friend, thanks."

He grinned as Buffy waved goodbye. Willow and Giles also said their goodbyes to the plantman and followed.

Buffy opened the door, revealing the gang anxiously awaiting their return. Xander got to her first.

"Well? What happened?" he demanded.

Buffy opened her mouth to speak.

"A talking plant decoded the fractal, it's a map that says the Everstone is in the middle of a holy underground graveyard protected by a sect of death-worshipping vampires," Willow interjected hurriedly. "Oh, and I got a neat spell!" she added as an afterthought.

Xander's eyes widened as Buffy closed her mouth with an audible clack.

"Thanks, Will," she replied dryly.

Xander was still trying to puzzle out Willow's outburst.

"Oh," he finally said before shaking his head, wrapping an arm around Anya's waist and heading out the door. "A talking PLANT?" he asked incredulously.

"It's a long story," Willow chimed in.

Xander just nodded uncomprehendingly as they left the building. As they left, Buffy turned to Willow.

"Remind me to make sure Dawn isn't sprouting leaves."

"Check."

"So, that's the plan."

Buffy concluded to the assembled group back at DeGanon's sanctuary after picking Spike and Angel up at the club. Everyone looked grim; Spike was just the first to put it into words.

"Let me get this straight, love. You intend to raid a holy burial ground of a bunch of necrophiliac vampires, because an enchanted mulch heap told you so?" he asked aghast.

DeGanon glared at him.

"Pan has been faultless in his counsel to the Spaarti," he turned to Buffy. "If he says the artifact they seek is in the Lazaraens' territory, then it is so!" he finished.

Spike snorted. "Yeah, or he's setting us up to be ground into fertilizer, no pun intended."

Buffy shook her head.

"As far as I could tell, Pan was playing straight with us, he gave us a lot of information about…" she cast a quick look to Dawn, who wasn't paying the least bit of attention to any of this, "…things that he didn't have to," she finished cautiously.

Spike snorted. "Okay, so who gets to go along on this little excursion to a mortician's wet dream?" he asked derisively.

Buffy smiled slightly.

"Myself, naturally." She turned to Willow. "Willow, you're doing the tracking spell, so you kinda have to tag along," Buffy informed her friend apologetically.

The redheaded witch swallowed but nodded.

"I'm going, too," Angel put in.

Buffy looked up, surprised, but nodded.

"Me too," Spike chimed in.

Buffy shook her head. "No, I need you and Faith to stay here, in case the Khulghaani come back. They probably won't, but if they do, DeGanon will need all the help he can get."

Spike didn't like it and Faith looked like she was ready to say something, then thought better of it and fell silent.

"I'm coming, too," Alec said quietly.

Everyone turned to stare at him. Buffy addressed him.

"Bro, I don't think-"

"_I don't care what you think!"_Alec screamed, spittle shooting from his mouth in rage as he slammed his free hand down onto the table. Half the people assembled nearly leapt out of their seats and even Buffy looked startled.

A spurt of black slime burst free from the bandages over the left half of Alec's face and began to spread like an oozing spider web across his face as more darkness oozed out from between his shaking knuckles.

Gently, Willow put her hand on his trembling arm.

"Alec," she whispered, "love…"

Alec looked down at his shaking body and drew a long shuddering breath, exhaling slowly. The creeping darkness plastered against his face slowed and then stopped as Willow gently kissed the right side of his head and hair, whispering soothingly to him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, but focused on Buffy, his voice full of remorse and shame. "It hurts…"

Buffy reached out and squeezed his hand tightly, noticing that the darkness that had been dribbling out of it was now retreating at her touch.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Alec, it's okay. Really."

Alec smiled then and the last of the darkness on his face ceased to bubble, glistening dully and still amongst the torn bandages.

"I can see in the dark," Alec put in.

"Dude, you've only got one arm," Xander replied very carefully.

Three lances of darkness lashed out of the shadows and speared one, two, three cups on the table. Everyone jerked back as Alec smiled grimly.

"I don't need arms," he said simply.

Dawn bit her lip and said nothing as Buffy nodded.

"Okay, then, you're in, bro, but if you're coming you are going to get more rest first. I have no interest in aiding suicide," she said bluntly.

Alec nodded. "Agreed, we should hit the place come tomorrow, so we can make sure that everyone we need to come along is at a hundred percent," he checked his watch, "besides, it is really late. There's no way we'd make the trip and make it back before the sun came up, since we have to gain entrance to the Deadlands from above ground." He turned back to Buffy. "What do you think, sis?"

"Sounds like a good idea," Buffy reaffirmed

Alec nodded and turned to the group.

"That's it, then. Buffy, Angel, Willow and I will enter the Deadlands, and try to find the Everstone."

Alec's tone was grim. This was not going to be easy. With a sigh, he pushed his chair away from the table.

"Is that all? Then I recommend we get some rest," he looked around, "some of us are still a little banged-up from the Khulghaani assault and those who are heading out tomorrow need to be at their peak." He sighed. "Sounds like anything else is a death wish waiting to happen." He got to his feet and headed for the door.

Buffy sighed. "Thank you, Alec, for that overwhelming vote of confidence," she muttered, trying to distract herself from just how frightened she really was.

"That reminds me, Alec, stop by and see me before you turn in for the night; we're going to have to change your dressings."

Alec nodded and headed out into the hallway, aided by Angel. Buffy got up from the table, about to leave, when Faith flagged her down.

"Hey, B, you got a minute?" she asked.

Buffy frowned, but nodded. "Yeah, sure, Faith, what's up?" she queried.

Faith looked back and forth before speaking in a hushed tone.

"You and I are cool, right? Five by five?" she asked, the younger Slayer looking a little worried.

Buffy frowned, but nodded.

"Sure, I mean, you've pulled your weight between the bar, the Estate, and last nights attack. You've been proactive with group participation, why?" she asked puzzled.

Faith sighed. "It just seems like I'm getting left behind a lot, that's all. Like you don't want me around," she confessed.

Buffy instantly understood and placed a reassuring hand on Faith's shoulder.

"It's not that I don't want you around," Buffy began. "It's that I need someone to stay behind who can really fight." She cast a look at the group that was beginning to disperse. "Aside from Spike, all our heavy hitters are coming with me tomorrow morning for some crypt raiding." She turned back to Faith. "I need someone, who can really handle themselves in battle. I need a Slayer," she finished.

Faith sighed in relief and, managing a cocky grin, saluted the other woman.

"I'm your babe, B, have stake, will travel," she assured her.

Buffy turned to go and Faith suddenly reached out and put a restraining arm on her shoulder.

"Buffy?" she asked.

Buffy turned around, startled. It had been the first time in a while she could remember Faith calling her by her name.

"Yeah?"

Faith looked down and sighed hard.

"The last time I wanted to say this, you threatened to beat me to death, but… I'm really, really sorry." She looked up at the blond Slayer and Buffy was shocked to see tears forming in her dark eyes. "For everything. I just… I needed you to know that. I needed to know that I could say it and really mean it."

Buffy's face softened and, as she wordlessly gathered the other woman in a tight hug, Faith broke down.

"Oh, God, Buffy, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" She sobbed hard against the other woman, sinking to her knees, Buffy cradling her all the way down to the floor. "I'm so, so sorry!" Scarred in body and mind, Faith convulsed with hard, painful sobs and shook with misery as Buffy gently rocked her back and forth and stroked her hair soothingly.

"Shhh, it's okay Faith. It's going to be okay." She kissed the younger Slayer on the head as the woman continued to wail in anguish.

From the hallway, Alec and Angel watched the scene with deep tenderness mixed with awe. Alec turned to the vampire.

"Long cry from the scene at the Magic Box less than a week ago, isn't it?" he commented quietly.

Angel just stared. "I've been waiting for this for over a year." He gestured to the sobbing Slayer and the woman she'd wronged consoling her.

"What's that mate?" Alec asked.

"Forgiveness," he replied before turning and leaving.

Alec smiled slightly at the vampire's words; he wasn't talking about forgiveness for Faith just then, and followed, leaving the Slayers alone.

Alec wandered around the hideout a little, lost in thought, when he heard what sounded like muffled crying. Having just come from a tearfest he looked around and saw a shape huddled miserably against a storm drain. He squinted.

"Dawn?" he asked quietly.

"Why are you doing this, Alec?" was all the response he got back.

"Why am I doing…?"

Dawn got to her feet and advanced on him.

"This. Going to fight these death vampires when you're already injured."

"Because-"

"If you say 'because it's what needs to be done', so help me, I will beat you to death, Alec Giles."

Alec blinked, a little taken aback. Dawn came closer.

"Why, Alec? Why are you doing this? Buffy managed before you arrived, she can handle this, with Angel and Willow and the others; they can all handle this. So, why does it have to be you _every_ time?"

"I don't know, I guess partly it's because I'm just trying to take care of them, they're important to me."

"And you're important to me!" Dawn blurted out. "You. Are. Important. Why is that so hard for you to see?"

"Because, I don't know what else to do, I guess. I've spent over a hundred years in a demon dimension, training to fight, to slay demons, and to win. Side by side with Buffy, protecting the people I care about. If I'm not doing that, then what am I to do?"

He looked down for a second.

"What use am I if I am not beating back the darkness?"

Dawn's heart nearly broke at those words and the tone that he spoke them in; for the first time he sounded not like the confidant young warrior she'd associated him with, but instead as someone just like her sister - trapped by a destiny he didn't understand and afraid to fail the people he cared about.

"Alec, you are a light," Dawn began.

Alec snorted a little at that and Dawn tilted her head to look him in the eye, bringing a hand up to gently coax his chin back up.

"You are an amazing, wonderful, courageous…" She ran out of words and sputtered a little, trying to fit all the things she felt for this man into a single sentence and failing. "But the point is that you're not just a weapon to be pointed at the enemy and let loose. You're not an attack dog, you're Giles' son and Buffy's brother." She smiled a little. "And you're Willow's boyfriend, and my friend, and we all care about you dearly. _You_, Alec, not what you can do or how you fight or how you protect us, just you. _All_ of you."

Alec smiled a little and nodded and Dawn's heart fluttered.

"Besides, it could be worse, you could be useless, like me," she said quipping lightly.

"You," Alec commented, "are not useless."

Dawn scoffed. "Sure doesn't seem that way. She makes me feel so… useless," she choked out and Alec was surprised to see tears back in her eyes.

Their positions were reversed and it was now Alec's turn to be strong for her. Wordlessly he gathered Dawn up in a tight embrace with his one arm and rocked her gently.

"She doesn't think you're useless," he assured her.

She looked up at him in disbelief.

"Oh, yeah? You notice she didn't ask Faith, or her boyfriend, to join you guys. They can both fight really well." She sniffled. "You know why? I'll tell you. Because she left them behind to watch out for me, while _you_ and her and the others enter a big black tomb, probably to die down there," she shook her head angrily. "I'm a burden!"

"Hey!" Alec said firmly, forcing her to look up at him. "NO ONE is dying down there tomorrow. Not me, not your sister, not anyone. You hear me?" he demanded. Dawn just sniffled. "And you are NOT useless, Dawn. You have a purpose, a very great purpose."

Dawn snorted derisively. "Yeah, what, to catch all two hundred Pokemon?" she demanded bitterly.

Alec shook his head.

"No, someday, your presence, your contribution, will be key to us all," he said carefully, trying to dance around the truth.

Dawn snorted.

"God, ever since Buffy and I had that fight, and she told me I wasn't her sister or something like that, she's been acting all weird and super-protective of me." She wiped at her eyes. "It used to be she couldn't care less where I was, now she has to know, like, all the time." She sniffled again. "I hate it," she muttered.

"Would you rather she go back to supposedly not caring?" Alec asked simply.

Dawn frowned. "I just wish she would trust me. I just wish she wasn't always trying to get rid of me, like I'm in the way all the time. I wish… I could do something right, in her eyes," she whispered.

Alec smiled in understanding. Few things were as compelling as a younger siblings search for approval from their older siblings. Buffy had done it a few times with him in the beginning of their relationship, feeling like she had something to prove to the older son of the man she regarded as a father, before she'd settled into the comfortable groove the two of them had now.

"She does trust you," Alec assured her. "I mean, look at it this way. Instead of sitting in some luxurious swanky hotel in Manhattan eating popcorn and watching all the TRL you could handle you're here with us… in the middle of a sewer…" he frowned as Dawn began to smile slightly, "…fighting for our lives every day against demonic forces of evil. You know," he began, "maybe you're right. If your sister was trying to get rid of you, this would be a good way to go about doing it." He looked down, grinning teasingly as Dawn socked him with a tiny fist.

"Creep," she muttered sniffling.

Alec nodded and held her gently.

"Yeah, but I'm your creep, so I'm forgiven," he replied.

Dawn smiled blissfully at the thought of Alec being 'hers' before hugging him tightly.

"You're not a creep," she told him.

Alec shrugged. "Darn, I've always wanted to be a creep, or at least a troglodyte or something equally unpleasant," he quipped.

Dawn laughed and sniffled.

"You're not any of those things," she said softly.

Alec looked down. "No? What am I then?" he asked.

Dawn squeezed him hard. "You're my hero," she whispered.

Alec smiled and kissed her head, touched, before patting her arm.

"Come on, you know what we need?" he asked grinning.

"Corn flakes with sugar?" Dawn asked as Alec scooped a heaping tablespoon of sugar on her bowl of cereal.

"Don't knock it, petite, stuff is soul food," Alec replied, pouring milk over her cereal and some for himself. "Comfort food is essential to life," he informed her. He held up a spoon. "Cheers!"

Dawn grinned and tapped her spoon against his before digging in.

"You know," Dawn began through a mouthful of cereal. "You never did tell me how you did that trick with the blades coming out of your arms the other night." She swallowed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Alec shrugged, a little uncomfortable.

"I'm really not sure how it happened either," he admitted. "I just got really scared and angry at the thought of you getting hurt by that vampire and I sort of just… freaked," he replied.

Dawn smiled, touched.

"Yeah, I remember, you wailed on that dude. Wham!" she exclaimed slamming her fist into her hand emphatically and nearly knocking the glass milk jug off the table.

Alec dove for it and caught it before it tipped over.

Dawn blushed. "Sorry," she apologized meekly.

Alec grinned and straightened the milk jug.

"It's not a problem. Combat reflexes and all that. Helps me keep up with the Slayers." He crunched on a mouthful of sugary corn flakes thoughtfully. "Which reminds me," he began, swallowing. "What exactly went down between your sister and Faith?" he asked.

Dawn looked down.

"I don't really know," she started. "I just know that Buffy hated her more than anyone in the whole world. Sometimes Buffy would cry for no reason, I'd ask what was wrong, but she'd never tell me. Riley and she sort of… drifted apart during the summer. Maybe Faith had something to do with that, I don't know," Dawn admitted.

Alec nodded. "Yeah, I heard something like that. He was transferred?"

Dawn shook her head.

"Nope. He once asked me to keep a secret." She smiled slightly. "But I can tell you." She looked up at Alec. "Right?"

Alec 'mm-hmm'-ed and she continued.

"Riley wasn't transferred, at least not exactly. He told me one night, after Buffy and he had sort of broken up, that he'd put in for a relocation to Nevada," she confessed.

Alec's eyes widened. "I was always under the impression that they had broken up _because_ he'd been transferred."

Dawn shook her head.

"Nope, although that's what he told her. He said she didn't want him pining away for someone who wasn't going to be there for her, the way she deserved. Or something like that." She waved a hand dismissively. "I try not to pay too much attention to what my sister does; most of it is pretty nasty."

"Does that include me?" Alec asked the girl wryly.

Dawn's hand flew to her mouth as she blushed.

"No! I mean, no way." She put a hand on his shoulder. "You're very un-nasty. You are so unbelievably far from nasty it's not funny," she reassured him hurriedly.

Alec chuckled and patted her hand affectionately.

"So why _did_ Riley put in for transfer?" Alec asked.

Dawn leaned in close to whisper.

"He told me, the night he left. He said that Buffy loved him, but that she wasn't IN love with him." She shook her head as Alec frowned.

"What the hell does that mean?" he asked incredulously.

"Beats me." Dawn shrugged. "All I know is he told me that, wished me good luck, and walked out the door." She sighed. "That was the last either of us ever saw of him."

Alec exhaled hard and leaned back.

"Wow. And you've been keeping this secret all this time?" he asked.

Dawn nodded.

"Did Riley often entrust you with whoppers like that?" Alec inquired.

The girl shook her head.

"Nope, first time, but he was always really nice to me. Not like Spike, whose only words to me are 'fetch my lights, turn up the music,' and 'Beer me!' " Her voice slipped into a pretty good impression of the British vampire, causing Alec to roar with laughter.

"That does sound like him," he admitted through fits of laughter.

"Sounds like who?" a voice from behind them asked.

They turned to see Willow come into the kitchen area.

"I heard voices and I was hungry," she explained.

Her eyes settled on the cereal box and sugar bowl.

"Ooo!" she exclaimed. "Corn Flakes with sugar! My favorite." She gestured to an empty seat. "Can I… I mean, would you mind if I, maybe joined you guys?" she asked shyly.

Alec turned to Dawn, arching an inquiring eyebrow. Dawn frowned for a while, then sighed and smiled up at Willow, she had to get used to no longer being jealous of this woman.

Scooching down in her chair, she stretched out a leg and pushed the empty chair away from the table for Willow.

"Okay," Dawn told her. "But I get first dibs on milk," she warned the older woman.

"Deal," Willow replied.

She smiled at both of them as Alec got another bowl and poured cereal in it. Willow began scooping heaping spoonful after heaping spoonful of sugar onto the cereal. Alec and Dawn gaped in amazement as Willow poured the milk over the cereal and took a big bite, somehow cramming an enormous amount cereal into her tiny mouth.

"Mmmmm!" she exclaimed happily, crunching nosily. Alec's face broke out into a grin. "Ith guud!" Willow exclaimed through a very full mouth.

Alec laughed. "Don't talk with your mouth full, honey," he gently chastised her.

"Yeah," Dawn put in. "Even my sister's got better manners than _that_," she admonished jokingly.

Willow put a hand over her heart, as if wounded by the comparison, and swallowed.

"Wow! That's something," Willow admitted grinning. "This stuff is good, but not as good as Lucky Charms," she observed.

"I LOVE Lucky Charms!" Dawn exclaimed, her voice slipping into a really bad Irish accent. "Pink hearts, orange stars, yellow moons…" She frowned, before turning to Willow. "What were the others?" she asked.

"Green clovers," Willow put in.

Dawn nodded her head rapidly. "That's right, green clovers,"

"Blue diamonds," Willow and Dawn said in unison, "purple horseshoes, red balloons, pots of gold and rainbows!" they finished, grinning triumphantly.

Dawn tried to chew and laugh at the same time, causing milk to dribble out the corners of her mouth, which caused her and Willow to laugh even harder. Willow shook her head.

"No, no, you're doing it wrong. You have to…" she scooped up a large helping of cereal with her spoon, holding it up for them to see, "…and like this…" she demonstrated, tilting her head to the side to get the whole spoonful in her mouth. She chewed loudly and turned back to Alec and Dawn.

"Thee? Wyke dis!" she said through a mouthful of food.

Dawn was nearly delirious with laughter. Alec was grinning like an idiot. Leaning over he winked at Dawn.

"Watch this," he whispered conspiringly.

Dawn frowned as Alec tapped Willow's shoulder. She turned, still chewing her mouthful of cereal.

"Whu?" she asked.

Alec suddenly thrust his fingers over his eye, and peeled his nose back. With a gasping laugh, Willow spewed milk out of her nose and all over the table, wheezing and coughing.

"Ewwww!" Dawn exclaimed, hurriedly backing away from the table. "Gross!" she exclaimed, laughing.

Alec was nearly tipping over in his chair with laughter as Willow wiped at her running nose and watery eyes.

"Alec!" the redhead cried, rushing over to swat at him furiously.

Alec protected himself vainly.

"Every time! That face does it to her every time!" he howled with glee as Willow attacked him.

Dawn rushed over and began swatting at him as well. Alec cried out and toppled over backwards in his chair from the onslaught, the two women following him down, swatting and tickling him in turn. All three were howling with laughter that echoed long into the night.

Buffy sat down next to Giles who was seated at the table, cleaning his glasses. He looked up and smiled.

"Oh, hello, Buffy," he smiled at her.

Buffy waved a little in greeting as she stretched her legs out in front of her. Giles replaced the glasses on his face.

"Angel told me what you did for Faith just now." He reached out and gripped her hand. "I'm very proud of you, Buffy. It took a lot to forgive her her sins," he stated.

Buffy just nodded. "Right up there with forgiving Angel?" she asked him point-blank.

Giles sighed. "Logically, I know that Angel and Angelus are two vastly different people. That Angel has risked his life for us several times over and has saved all our lives at least once," he looked down.

"But illogically…?" Buffy asked tentatively.

Giles looked back up and exhaled hard.

"In my heart, I always wonder what his face looked like when he killed Jenny." He looked back at Buffy. "I wonder if it looked at all the way it did while he was torturing me," Giles said softly.

Buffy sighed in understanding.

"And that's what your eyes see every time you look at him," she finished quietly.

"With Spike, it's different," Giles explained. "I've never hated Spike." He smiled slightly and looked down. "Although there were times," he admitted, "when I was ready to turn that loudmouthed abrasive ponce into a coat rack," he chuckled quietly.

"Thank you for not doing that," Buffy smiled at him.

Giles scoffed.

"Thank a well-stocked liquor cabinet. If both of us had been sober during his stay at my home, neither of us would have survived the ordeal," Giles commented direly.

Buffy laughed, but it was a strained laugh as Giles began to continue with his original train of thought.

"But Angel," he looked at Buffy, "_Angelus,_" he corrected, "I hated very, very much," Giles told her.

Buffy snorted humorlessly. "Yeah, I can see how killing your girlfriend and torturing you could get someone on your bad side," she said softly.

"It wasn't that," Giles replied, causing Buffy's head to shoot up at stare at him uncomprehendingly. "I hated him before that. I hated him after that first day. When I realized that you and he had…" his voice trailed off and Buffy got the hint, "…and he had taken that experience, that should have been one of the most beautiful experiences of your young life, and he twisted it and turned it against you." He looked at Buffy.

"He turned an innocent girl's most intimate and vulnerable moment into an instrument of torture to be wielded against her." He looked down and shook his head. "After that, I hated him." He looked back up at the young Slayer. "It wasn't my torture I condemned him for, Buffy. It was yours," he finished and looked down.

Buffy's eyes filled with tears as a rush of love for this man, who she had come to love and trust as a father, filled her. Getting up from the table, she leaned over and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. Giles looked up, stunned, then exhaled hard as Buffy gathered him in a tight hug that very nearly crushed the life out of him. Giles patted his ward's shoulders.

"Buffy?" he whispered softly.

She sniffled. "Yeah?"

"I can't breathe," he told her.

Buffy hurriedly released him and he sucked in a lungful of air. She laughed a little, embarrassed, as she wiped away tears.

"I'm sorry, got a little carried away in the Hallmark of it all," she explained.

Giles waved her apology away.

"No, it's quite all right," he assured her, then smiled, "actually it was quite pleasant." He looked up at Buffy, resuming his speech. "I've always loved you as a daughter, a student, and a friend. You've made me more proud than any father could be, certainly more than any Watcher." He stood and took her hands in his and looked up at her. "I have every confidence in your abilities, Buffy. I am certain we shall be victorious," he told her firmly, his voice full of conviction.

"Giles?" Buffy sniffled as fresh tears sprang to her eyes.

"Yes, Buffy?" he asked quietly.

"Brace yourself."

Giles frowned. "Whatever do you- OH!"

He cried out as Buffy slammed into him, knocking him back into his chair, hugging him tightly as fresh tears leaked down her face. Giles held her back just as tightly, his own eyes becoming moist with emotion. Finally, Buffy released him, sniffling and wiping away tears.

"Wow," she laughed, standing up. "Been the night for 'It's a wonderful life' moments, huh?" she asked.

Giles smiled slightly.

"Must be the holiday season, making us all sentimental," he replied wryly.

Buffy laughed and wiped at her eyes.

"Giles?"

"Yes, Buffy?" he asked.

Buffy sat down next to him.

"Not that I'm complaining, in fact, those were some of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me, but, why now?" she looked up at him. "I mean, you know I love you, right? You've been like the 'dad-that-didn't-split-and-go-to-L.A.' I never had."

Giles smiled warmly and nodded.

"So, why now? I mean, why put it into words now?"

Giles sighed and shrugged.

"I don't know. Possibly it has something to do with Alec," he smiled with paternal pride as his thoughts turned to his son briefly. "Coming to love him as a son reminded me how much I cared for you as a daughter. Also…"

He stopped to look at her, taking in the woman that had grown from the young girl, who, no more than five years ago, fresh to Sunnydale, had loudly declared to him on their first meeting her willing and eager intention to ignore her sacred birthright.

"Also, Buffy, you've grown up. You've become a woman," he smiled. "You've fully come into your own. And I wanted to tell you before you outgrew all your sentimentality to this stuffy old coot," Giles grinned self-deprecatingly.

Buffy shook her head.

"I'll never outgrow my fuzzy daughter-shaped feelings for this stuffy old coot," she replied smiling.

Giles chuckled. "Well, yes, be that as it may." He looked up at her. "My own father was a very distant man. It was truly difficult to garner any kind of notice from him, never mind any sense of pride. I suppose that's why I fell in with Ethan's crowd." He smirked wryly. " 'Desperate plea for attention' and all that," he quipped before becoming serious again. "I just never wanted you to feel like that. Feel that for one moment, I was anything other than completely proud of you." He nodded his head. "There were times, I'll admit, when I was a little unsure about your judgment."

"Can those times be labeled 'Angel' by any chance?" Buffy asked wryly.

Giles nodded. "And Spike, and your fashion sense, and your taste in music."

Buffy laughed. "Get back to the 'praising me' already!" she exclaimed.

Giles smiled. "But beyond all that. You've always pulled through and somehow tapped into reserves of strength that fill me with such… awe," he looked up at Buffy, "and such pride, that for a father, who, until recently, had no children of his own, I can safely say that no daughter has made hers more proud," he finished.

Buffy smiled at him warmly.

"So, how long is this 'pride, love, and trust' going to last?" she asked wryly.

"About until the same time that we are no longer in mortal peril," Giles responded evenly. "At which time this will be reverting back to stern disapproval and priggish admonishment." The former librarian grinned and Buffy threw her head back, laughing till her eyes were filled with tears of a different nature entirely.

"I'll keep that in mind," she gasped between laughs, wiping at her eyes.

"Buffy?"

"Yes, oh stern disapproving father figure?"

"Take care of Alec down there, he's going to need you, now more than ever," Giles said quietly. Buffy turned to look at him and saw that he was not kidding. "Keep him calm and collected. Whatever is afflicting him, it seems to feed on anger and fear."

Buffy swallowed, but nodded.

"You can count on me, I will keep your son in super Zen Kung Fu mode. Promise."

Giles smiled, reassured.

"When all this is over, and the Hellmouth is sent packing, perhaps you and I can sit down somewhere and have scones and tea," she proposed wryly.

Giles smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I can think of nothing more I'd rather do," he replied warmly.

"Well, I for one am very happy that you're not going," Anya put in, lying nude in Xander's arms.

She nuzzled against his bare chest and tucked the sheet under her chin.

"That place sounds awful and it's full of dead dusty things," she looked up at him, "and if you died, I'd be very… upset," she confided, struggling for the right words.

Xander smiled and kissed her forehead.

"I know, Ahn, I know," he assured her. "I just wished sometimes I could contribute more."

Anya frowned.

"Well, do you remember what that nice shiny-haired woman said? She said that you were what everyone else fights for, that you were joy and laughter," she held him tightly. "Plus, you're going to help get us really big guns. That sounds like helping to me."

Xander sighed again. "I suppose you're right," he replied, not really believing it.

Anya lifted her head up and rested her weight on an elbow.

"Xander, just because you don't beat people silly or cast spells, doesn't mean you're useless," she explained.

"It doesn't?" he asked lifting his body to rest on his elbow facing her.

"No!" she exclaimed. "Not at all. I mean, _whose_ idea was it to go on a road trip?"

"Mine," he replied cautiously.

"And who supplied the camper?"

"That would be me."

"Right, and who was responsible for e-mailing Riley for the guns?" she asked.

"Well, technically that would be Willow, but I did contribute," Xander amended.

Anya waved a hand dismissively.

"Come on! Hacking into the Pentagon and retrieving personal information from the U.S.'s top-secret laboratory pursuing the study of extraterrestrial life? Anyone can do that! You think that Willow would have had any idea what to order once she got the address?"

"No?" Xander put forth meekly.

Anya hit her pillow.

"Damn right!" she declared, before smiling sweetly. "So, you see how key you've been? Besides, it doesn't matter whether you're considered key to the group or not," she told him.

He scoffed. "It doesn't?" he asked skeptically.

Anya shook her head. "No. Because you're key to me," she told him.

Xander's jaw sagged open.

"Anya that was… romantic!" he exclaimed giving his girlfriend a shocked look.

Anya smiled slightly before getting a serious look on her face.

"Yes, well, I want sex again, so I figured that this would be the best way of getting it. But it's taking too long." And with that, she pounced on the formerly morose man amidst wails of protest and pleas for mercy.

Such wails and pleas went unheard.

" 'Sing as the spirits move you, sing to your doubling eye, Plain Jane becomes Loveable Linda, when six moons shine in the sky!' "

Angel and DeGanon roared drunkenly from their table. There were several empty mugs littering the table and floor; they had spent the rest of the night and most of the day, drinking. Spike had already passed out, his chin propped up on the table.

" 'All of the waitresses love you. Every dog is your friend, whatever you say is just what you mean, so hoist three sheets to the wind!' "

They finished the song and, slamming their mugs together, spilling much wine in the process, they greedily and noisily guzzled down their contents before casually tossing the drained mugs behind their shoulders. They looked at each other and immediately broke out into a hysterical fit of giggling. Angel suddenly hiccupped and belched, which caused them to laugh even louder. DeGanon refilled Angel's and his own mug with wine.

"I tell you," DeGanon began, "it's good to see a dead man enjoy his liquor."

Angel snorted.

"You should have seen me during my breathing days." He stood up a little unsteadily and jutted his chest out in pride. "I was the king of Galway as far as drinking and wenching went!" he declared before tumbling back into his chair, laughing.

DeGanon laughed, shaking his head.

"I believe it my boy, as God as my witness, I do," he chuckled and crossed himself, before leveling an inquisitive look to the inebriated vampire. "But there's something I need to know."

Angel looked up from draining his mug.

"Aye?" he replied, his voice unconsciously slipping back into his original Irish accent from his breathing days.

"The woman, Buffy, do you still have feelings for the girl?" he asked.

Angel sputtered and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, casting worried looks to the slumbering Spike. DeGanon followed his gaze and smiled.

"No worrying about that one, he's sleeping like he was in his mother's arms," DeGanon grinned and gestured to the wine. "Gypsy spirits - the devil's own blood!"

Angel snorted. "I doubt that," he replied.

DeGanon chuckled.

"Back to my question, lad. Do you still have feelings for the Slayer?"

Angel swallowed another draught of wine and considered.

"It's odd, I feel as if the best thing I could do for her is to stay as far away from her as possible. And, yet…" He shook his head. "Life keeps throwing us together in these situations." Angel frowned before bursting into another fit of hysterical laughter. "And God help me, I still love her!" he cried, throwing his mug away from him in anger and sinking his head into his hands.

DeGanon regarded the vampire calmly and gently placed a weathered hand on his shoulder.

"Lad, you need to tell her," DeGanon told him.

Angel shook his head, not raising his head from his palms.

"I can't do that, DeGanon. She's moved on with her life," he replied forlornly.

DeGanon nodded. "Aye, she has," he gently propped the vampire up to look him in the eyes, "but that doesn't mean you can't be a part of that new life," he said softly.

Angel's brown eyes flashed.

"That's exactly what it means. Buffy is going to age and die and I'll always be the same. She's alive and I'm not," he finished bitterly.

DeGanon smiled indulgently.

"Yes, that's true. She's mortal, and you, at the moment, aren't. And, divine intervention aside, that's probably not going to change anytime soon." He gestured to Spike. "But look at this poor creature. Moaning on and on about his Drusilla," he leveled a gently admonishing glace at Angel. "They were both immortal, they were both vampires, neither of them we're going to age. And where are they now?" he asked.

Angel just shook his head. DeGanon continued.

"The point, lad, is that it doesn't matter _what_ you are, as long as _who_ you are stays true." He gestured at Spike. "You think _he_ gives a damn whether or not Buffy is going to age or not? This man doesn't look any further ahead than his next bottle or brawl. And while that point of view certainly has its drawbacks, it does have one major advantage."

Angel scoffed bitterly. "Yeah? And what's that?" he asked derisively.

"Courage, lad," the gypsy replied. "Sheer balls. It takes a lot of guts to say 'to blazes with the future, carpe diem!', you know?"

Angel shook his head, not quite getting it. DeGanon sighed and rephrased.

"You broke things off with Buffy, because you were afraid that you couldn't provide the kind of life she needed, right?" he asked gently. Angel nodded. "Well there you are, _that_ was your mistake," DeGanon informed him grinning.

Angel frowned.

"What was? Wanting her to have the right kind of life?" he asked puzzled.

"No, you great idiot," DeGanon replied. "Being afraid. You were _afraid_ that you couldn't do it. That what you would eventually overshadow the feelings you had for each other, and that's a mistake." DeGanon shook his head, gently admonishing. "Fear and love have no place together. When you love, you have to trust, lad, you have to trust that somehow, there's a plan. Call it God, fate, destiny, or just plain old-fashioned magic of love. True love, real love, always finds a way to work itself out." He smiled slightly. "It may _take_ a couple of centuries to get all straightened out, but that's usually because people can't help monkeying around with the divine plan," DeGanon finished grinning.

Angel was still frowning,

"So, what you're saying is I should just go for it and trust God to make it all right?" he asked disbelievingly.

DeGanon shook his head.

"No, lad, I'm telling you that you should love and rid yourself of fear, and then you'll see some miracles," DeGanon replied solemnly.

Angel's brow furrowed, lost in thought. Suddenly, DeGanon's face broke into a broad grin and he poured out more wine.

"But come now, lad, let us drink our libation!" he declared loudly.

Angel nodded and raised his glass to mirror DeGanon's raised mug,

"Here's to love, to life, to music, and women, and sex, and wine, and magic! Hallelujah, AMEN!" he cried, slamming his mug into Angel's loudly.

Suddenly Spike's head jerked up from the table.

"Damn right!" he slurred, throwing his fist into the air.

He smiled at both of them drunkenly before his eyes rolled back into his head and he slammed face first into the table, hard. There was a groan and Spike rolled off his chair to collapse into a heap on the floor.

"Oh, bloody hell," he moaned softly before passing out.

Angel looked down at the unconscious vampire and began to roar with laughter, leaning far back in his chair.

DeGanon piped up.

"Angel, lad, mind the…"

With a squawk of surprise, and pin wheeling arms, Angel toppled backwards over his chair to be deposited on the floor. There were a few moments of silence, then Angel began to snore blissfully.

"…chair," the gypsy lord finished wryly.

Chuckling, he sipped from his mug thoughtfully, before getting up from his chair, steady as a rock. He regarded the comatose pair of vampires with a grin.

"Never let it be said that DeGanon Tepes couldn't out drink any man, living or dead."

With a mock toast to the pair, he quietly left the room.


	26. Chapter 23 Deadlands

"Well? What did we _learn_ from this little experience?" a furious Slayer shrilly asked a hung over vampire some several hours later.

"Getting into drinking bouts with Romany chieftains can be hazardous to your health even if you're dead," Angel replied miserably, flinching at Buffy's voice.

Alec, his bandaged face twisted in amusement, was trying hard not to burst into laughter as he regarded the suffering vampire. Buffy sighed and turned to Spike, who looked even worse and seemed to be having difficulty staying upright.

"Was this _your_ idea?" she demanded.

Spike groaned and shook his head, but that caused him to groan some more and he put his hands to his temples.

"No, blame it all on that thrice-damned gypsy," he growled. "Who would've thought one man could put two vampires under the table?" he asked pathetically.

Alec's and Willow's hands both went up. Spike glared at them.

"Sod off!" he snarled.

Angel flinched. "Please, Spike, not so loud," he beseeched the other vampire.

Alec chuckled.

"Look at it this way, Spike. Remember all those poor idiots you did in with a railroad spike to the noggin? Consider this karmic payback," he commented, grinning.

Spike muttered something obscene as Buffy, exasperated, threw her hands up in the air.

"Well, that's great, we're about to pull a raid on a very nasty and unpleasant group of vampires… and look at you!" She gestured contemptuously at Angel. "You look like you're ready to fall over in a stiff breeze!" she finished, getting into his face.

Angel flinched and hung his head.

"Ah, good morning, my pasty friends!" DeGanon boomed, entering the room, not the slightest bit incapacitated.

Both Angel and Spike slipped into their game faces as they snarled at him, and then grabbed their heads in pain from the effort, their faces shifting back to normal. DeGanon grinned and handed Angel a cup of something thick and foul smelling. The dark haired vampire took it and frowned down at it.

"What is this stuff?" he asked, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

DeGanon grinned.

"Instant cure for a man suffering from overindulgence. You did not think I would allow you to incapacitate yourself on the eve of such a dangerous mission, did you?"

Angel sniffed at the foul-smelling brew before handing it back to DeGanon.

"I don't think I can drink that," he told him hastily.

DeGanon's grin broadened.

"Of course not, my friend. You will need assistance, yes? Say no more." The gypsy lord turned to Buffy. "If you wouldn't mind?"

The Slayer nodded, reached out, and grabbed a hold of Angel's ear. The vampire opened his mouth in protest.

"Ow! Buffy, what are you-?"

Before he could finish, DeGanon grabbed his face in a meaty hand, forced his mouth open wider and poured the entire cupful of sludge down his throat. Angel thrashed and struggled, trying to spit out the horrid substance, but DeGanon clamped a hand over the his mouth, forcing him to swallow. He did so and doubled over at the waist, gagging, as the gypsy and Buffy released him. He stumbled away from the pair, choking and spitting the residue out of his mouth.

"Oh God, what IS that stuff?" he gasped.

DeGanon grinned.

"It is an old secret recipe. And it has become old, because its contents have stayed a secret, my young friend."

Angel just gagged and spat some more, though his head was clearing in a hurry. He straightened and inhaled deeply, his eyes wide and alert. He turned to DeGanon.

"That's… amazing," he stated in awe.

DeGanon chuckled.

"Gypsy proverb: the worse medicine tastes, the better it is for you." He gestured to the empty mug. "This brew ought to raise the dead, eh?" he asked grinning.

Angel just nodded his head, amazed that such actions no longer caused him pain. Buffy was trying hard to be stern, but it wasn't working well. She patted Angel's face.

"Are we all better now?" she asked.

Angel smiled slightly and nodded. Buffy nodded back.

"Good," she turned to Spike and placed a kiss on his cheek.

"You get more kisses… _after_ you've brushed your teeth. Bleh!" she commented wryly.

She turned to face Willow and Alec as Spike placed his hand over his mouth, breathing out and inhaling. His eyes widened and he nearly swooned at the overwhelming stench.

"Are you two ready?" Buffy asked.

Alec cleared his throat.

"Not to be a sexist git, but," he turned to Willow, "can't you just teach me or Buffy the spell? I really am not happy with the idea of you coming down into this sixth circle of Hell or whatever it is."

Willow smiled and stroked his face.

"It's not sexist, Alec, a tad chauvinistic maybe, but in a sweet way." She kissed him gently, relieved that _her_ man did not smell like a distillery. "But I've fought with you guys before, and whether or not these dead guys are bad news, I'm still a part of the Scooby gang. I'm Velma, I have to participate," she finished, smiling cheekily.

Alec grinned and hugged his girlfriend.

"You're a brave woman," he whispered, kissing her head.

She smiled and gave him a squeeze before pulling away.

Alec frowned. "Wait a minute, if you're Velma, then who's Daphne?" he asked.

"Cordelia." Buffy, Willow, and Angel cried out in unison, causing Spike to wince in pain.

Alec chuckled and stared up at the sewer exit. "So, from here, where do we go?" he asked the gypsy.

"The graveyard you seek is on the other side of the river. You will have to travel above ground. There is no avoiding the lands of the Khulghaani if you go below ground."

Alec grimaced; he didn't relish the idea of dealing with the bald monstrosities, again, any more than anyone else present did.

"Okay, over the river it is," he affirmed and nodded, then looked around and frowned. "Say, where is everyone else? I thought they'd be here to see us off."

DeGanon shook his head.

"Alas, this is not so. Many of them are resting; those that are not are assisting with the rebuilding of our defenses are tending to the wounded." he smiled slightly. "The youngest of your coterie, Dawn, had to be restrained physically from joining us this morning." He chuckled and gestured to Alec. "Do you inspire such fierce loyalty in all the women you encounter?"

"Yes," Willow replied, wrapping her arms around her man. Alec smiled and stroked her hands affectionately.

DeGanon laughed and placed his hand on Alec's shoulders.

"When you return, my friend, you must reveal to me your secret."

Alec smiled slightly and turned to the group.

"Are we all ready to go then?"

Buffy nodded. "Yup." Then she frowned and held up a finger. "One second."

Digging through her bag, she rummaged around.

"I know it's in here somewh-… A-ha!" she cried triumphantly, removing a gnarled wooden stake from the bag.

Willow's eyes widened in recognition.

"That's…" she pointed at the stake.

"Mr. Pointy," Buffy finished. She smiled, stroking the smooth wood.

Alec frowned in puzzlement.

" 'Mr. Pointy?' " he asked.

Buffy nodded.

"It belonged to Kendra, the Slayer that came before Faith." She smiled sadly. "It's all I have to remember her by," she confided.

Spike coughed and looked down, uncomfortable, remembering that it was his girlfriend at the time that had ended the young girl's life.

Buffy turned to Willow.

"I went with Xander to go get it from the camper when he went to go pay for more time." She shrugged and grinned. " 'Don't leave home without it'," she quipped, making a staking motion with the lethal looking instrument.

Willow laughed quietly and Alec smiled.

"All right, then. Weapons in hand, let's go make life miserable for some vampires," he held out his hand to his sister and she slapped it.

"I say we go teach those guys everything they've ever wanted to know about being really, really dead," she replied wryly.

Spike nodded. "That's my girl," he grinned, and then winced. "Ow," he moaned.

Buffy patted him on the head.

"Be back soon lover," she smiled as he nodded.

"Good luck, pet," Spike whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

Buffy smiled and stroked his face before turning to the group.

"Let's do this," she told them, her face set in determination.

Spike turned to Alec, his hand outstretched.

"Bring her back safe, mate."

Alec slapped the blonde's hand.

"You know it," Alec replied and began climbing up the ladder.

DeGanon grinned and waved as they left the sewer.

"God be with you!" he cried.

Spike glared at him.

"While you're offering prayers, mate, could you offer one to me? A prayer for the pain to end?"

DeGanon laughed and led the seething vampire away.

The group made it across the river without incident and quickly found the graveyard.

It was, unfortunately, not hard to miss.

A thin layer of mist wrapped around crumbling, moss-covered tombstones. Hideous stone statues, half-sunk into the ground, tilted crazily. A huge, ominous looking tree dominated the whole scene.

"Okay, this is about as scary as graveyards get," Willow said nervously.

Buffy was inclined to agree. From the first step upon the spongy, marsh-like ground, there was a palpable sense of evil and decay. She shivered in the cold night air.

"No, dang nabbit, you flea-bitten mongrel, you're supposed to bring the stick back, not bury it!" a cantankerous voice cried out.

The gang whirled around ready to confront…

…an old man in a New York Yankees baseball cap and an "I LOVE NY" sweatshirt, casually leaning against a mausoleum, throwing sticks to a golden retriever.

"Now, listen here!" the old man leveled a gnarled finger. "I throw the stick and _you_ fetch it! Understand?"

The dog barked and the old man frowned.

"Eh? Guests you say?" he asked querulously.

He turned and peered up at the group.

"Oh, hullo." The old man smiled, getting to his feet.

"Hi," Buffy replied a little uncertainly. There was something… odd about the befuddled old man.

The man smiled at them.

"Nasty bit of night, ain't it?" he sighed. " 'Course, it's winter in San Francisco, what can you expect?"

Alec frowned. "Uh… we're in New York," he informed the man.

He frowned and looked around.

"Eh? New York you say?" He shook his head. "Well, that would explain why I saw the Statue of Liberty at lunch today." He grinned. "I went to this little deli on the corner here," he gestured, "had this cold lamb sandwich with just a dab of Coleman's mustard." He beamed at them and licked his lips, rubbing his stomach. "Mmm… very good. Best sandwich in town."

Buffy finally found her voice.

"Umm… who are you?" she asked.

The old man frowned.

"I'm… I'm…"

He scratched his head, which was dominated by a large, badly battered top hat. The dog barked and the man turned to face him.

"Well, what do YOU want already?" he demanded of the dog.

The dog barked again and raised a paw. The old man felt his hat and smiled.

"That's right!" he cried.

He turned and stuck out a hand.

"Olive Seuss!" He frowned and retracted the hand. "No, wait, that's not right."

He beamed and stuck his hand out again.

"Olive loaf! … No, that's not it." He frowned once more and pulled his hand back again.

The dog barked and the old man brightened.

"That's right!" He looked up and beamed at the three, who were now regarding the crazed man with a little wariness. "Oliver Seuss!" He stuck his hand out a third time. "At your service. Huzzah."

When he grinned he showed a mouthful of perfectly white teeth, Buffy noticed as she tentatively took his hand. The skin was warm and surprisingly smooth. He had brilliant blue eyes that were deeply lined. 'Laugh lines' her mother had called them once. There was something youthful in those eyes. She couldn't help but smile at the old man's antics.

"Buffy. Buffy Summers," she introduced herself. Oliver smiled and gave her hand a firm shake before releasing it. Buffy gestured behind her. "And this is Dusk, Angel, and Willow."

The three nodded in turn as the old man scrutinized them.

"Bunny, Alice, Angelina, and Wilma. My, what odd names!" he exclaimed in surprise, shaking his head, which was a snowy white underneath the hat. "Well, kids today. One minute it's ballroom dancing and plays, the next it's disco."

The dog barked and Oliver gestured to the golden retriever.

"This here is Mikey." He smiled at them.

The dog barked again and Oliver turned around, scowling at it.

"Well, out with it!" he demanded of the dog, impatiently.

The dog barked once more and the old man rolled his eyes and, bending over to pick up a stick, tossed it over the dog's head.

"Fetch, ya flea-bitten mongrel!" the old man cried. The dog barked at him, sounding almost indignant at being addressed so, before turning tail and chasing the stick. "Pain-in-the-butt dog," Oliver muttered.

Angel stepped forward.

"Sir, you can't stay here, it isn't safe," he warned him.

Oliver looked up at him.

"What's that my boy? Not safe?" His eyes suddenly widened in terror as he gripped the younger man's arms. "Jumping Jehosophat! Have the Reds pushed the button? Are they invading? Are they going to drop the big one?"

Suddenly, the old man leapt onto a stone coffin, in a surprisingly agile maneuver for one so old. He thrust his chest out, and his fist in the air.

"We'll fight to last man, by gumb! Better dead than green!" He frowned and looked down, "Or was it blue?" He shook his head, muttering to himself.

Willow leaned over to address Buffy.

"Uh… Buffy? Maybe it's not in my place to judge, but I don't think this guy's playing with a full deck," she whispered quietly.

The old man whirled around.

"That reminds me, I have a great card trick to show you!" he cried excitedly. He hopped off the crypt and produced a deck of cards. "That'll be a donation of one penny, please. Shiny is preferable."

Alec frowned and reached into his coat.

"Well, listen, I've got a dollar here…"

The old man cut him off with an impatient snort.

"A penny, please. Shiny." He scowled at Alec who was, for some reason, humbled by the man's reproving stare.

"Here," Angel huffed, handing him a penny.

The old man snatched it up and peered at it, squinting. He breathed on it and buffed it with his sleeve, trying to catch the moonlight with it.

"Yeah. Yeah." He chuckled to himself and looked up at Angel, gesturing with the penny, "1853. Good year, lad!" He grinned and put the penny in his sweatshirt pocket before fanning out the cards before the group, who, at that moment, were wondering just what in the world they were doing playing card games with a crazy old man in the middle of a graveyard.

"Pick a card, any card," he beamed at them.

Alec tentatively took a card from the fanned-out deck. The old man gestured wildly to him.

"Okay, okay, now DON'T tell what it is, okay? Whatever you do, do NOT tell me what it is, got it?" he demanded, his bushy eyebrows meeting in a 'v' over his eyes.

Alec nodded as the old man put a hand to his head, concentrating.

"Ommmmm…" he began to chant, "A, E, I, O, U, and some-times Y…" he continued. Finally he snapped his fingers.

"Got it!" he cried. "Your card is the Ten of Diamonds!" he declared proudly.

Alec looked up over the Eight of Spades and shook his head. The old man's face fell.

"No? I could have sworn that was it. Oh, well…"

He shrugged his shoulders and turned his attention to a dog carrying a stick. Unlike the other, who had been a golden retriever, this one was a beautiful greyhound.

"Good boy, Mikey!" Oliver cried, crouching down and patting the dog on the head approvingly.

Buffy frowned.

"Wait a second, wasn't that a…?" she frowned, losing her train of thought.

Oliver looked up at her.

"Eh? What's that, little lady? Afraid I can't hear so well, hearing's going you know?"

Buffy shook her head to clear it.

"Look, never mind, it isn't safe for you to be here, Oliver, you have to go," she told him firmly.

The old man frowned unhappily.

"I do?" he asked petulantly, scratching his head. He sighed and shrugged. "Well, okay, Bunny, if you say so."

He whistled for the dog, who rushed over to him.

"Come on, Mikey! We need to go now." He turned back to Buffy and beamed at her. "It was very nice meeting you, Bunny. Maybe we'll run into each other, again, sometime?"

Buffy just nodded, trying to get rid of him.

"Sure, Oliver, whatever you say."

He smiled cheerfully at the others. "Goodbye, Alice, Wilma, Angelina!"

He frowned and leaned forward to speak to Angel.

"Just between you and me, young man, I'd have a long talk to my parents about that name of yours. Boy with a name like that is just asking for trouble on the playground," he confided to the vampire. Winking, he waved a hand. "Well, you do what you think is best, Angelina." He smiled at the dumbfounded vampire, patting his hand reassuringly before heading off.

"Goodbye, nice meeting you all!" He waved before he walked out of the graveyard and turned the street corner.

Alec suddenly started.

"Hey, wait a minute!" he yelled, jumping over a fence. "You forgot your..."

He turned the corner and skidded to a halt.

The old man had vanished.

"…card," Alec finished, puzzled.

He looked around, scanning the deserted street, but there was no sign of the old man. Sighing, he looked at the card and stopped. The card that had been the Eight of Spades was now a Joker card emblazoned with a cheery laughing face that bore a slight resemblance to the old man. Alec shook his head and returned to the others.

He never did remember that, even mangling his name into 'Alice', Buffy had introduced him as 'Dusk' to the old man.

"So, where's this entrance?" Alec asked when he rejoined the others.

Buffy, Willow, and Angel were searching the mausoleums looking for some kind of underground access. They were coming up empty.

"Nada," Willow declared, exiting from a mausoleum. "Though I did see a rat the size of a small car," she confided.

Buffy shook her head in frustration.

"It just doesn't make any sense," she growled. "DeGanon said the entrance to the Deadlands was here."

"I believe him," Angel put forth dryly, looking at a particularly gruesome statue, covered in insects.

Willow made a face. "Ugh… yuck," she blanched.

Alec walked over to her and wrapped his good arm around her comfortingly, which she was quick to accept.

"Could be worse, love, could be frogs," he quipped wryly.

Willow glared at him. "Don't mock my frog fear," she warned direly.

Alec chuckled and kissed her head.

"What about that spell?" he asked suddenly.

Willow's eyes widened.

"That's right!" she cried. "I forgot I had it! Buffy!" she yelled.

The Slayer poked her head out of another crypt, frowning at the witch.

"Spell!" Willow replied.

Buffy nodded and walked towards her. Willow dug out the sheet of paper with the spell on it and began to read.

" 'Forces unseen, reveal your secrets'!" she finished.

There was a loud _bing!_, then everything was quiet. A few moments passed then a loud _bong!_ followed.

Willow giggled. "It sounds like my doorbell," she grinned.

Angel gestured. "It came from over here," he told them.

Gathering his coat around him he stalked off towards the sound, Buffy, Alec, and Willow following. He stopped before the massive tree.

"This is where the response came from." He turned to Willow. "It's like sonar: you emit a sound burst, the sound carries and reflects off the Everstone, sending a different pitch back to you."

Willow favored him with a condescending smile.

"I _do_ know how sonar works, Mr. 'Tall, Dark, and Broody'," she replied wryly.

If Angel could have blushed, he would have.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

Alec chuckled as he looked the tree over. "I don't see any kind of door."

He began to take a step forward when Buffy slammed a restraining arm against his chest. He stumbled back away from the tree, throwing the Slayer a confused look.

"Uh… sis?" he asked.

Buffy shushed him and picked up a rock. Carefully, she tossed it onto the wet ground before the tree. The ground began to shift and the earth slowly swallowed up the rock.

Alec's eyes widened.

"That looks… unpleasant," he commented dryly.

Willow nodded her head.

"Just slightly," she replied, turning an amazed look to Buffy. "How did you know?" she asked.

Buffy gestured to the earth around the tree.

"No snow or leaves, all the vegetation around the tree is all brown and nasty."

Alec frowned.

"If all the vegetation is dead around the tree, how can that tree still be standing?" he asked.

Buffy shook her head. "I've got a hunch."

She turned to her brother. "Alec, a little long distance log splitting, please?"

Alec frowned, but nodded. As his eyes became pools of darkness, he reared back his arm and lashed out with a darkness tendril. To their amazement, the instant the tendril touched the wood, it split open, spilling forth maggots and rotted vegetation.

Willow made a face.

"Never seen a tree do THAT before," she commented.

Alec cleared away the muck and slime with the tendril before dissipating it, not really eager to absorb the grime-encrusted tendril back under his skin. He craned his neck and peered into the tree.

"It's partially hollow," he told them. "There's a really big hole in the center, looks like it leads straight down beneath the ground." He turned to the group, his eyes fading back to their normal shade. "I'd say this is our entrance."

Angel frowned.

"So, how do we get to it?" he asked.

"Leave that to me," Buffy called out, coming up from behind them with a huge stone slab hoisted over her head. With a grunt, she threw it onto the quicksand-like ground, which oozed and flowed, slowly beginning to envelop the stone.

The Slayer gestured. "Come on, quickly. Before the primordial ooze swallows it up."

Alec leapt onto the sinking stone slab and perched gingerly on the edge of the entrance in the tree. Willow and Angel followed and Buffy had to leap, nearly not making it as Angel dove forward, catching her arms just as the last of the stone disappeared under the ground.

"I've got you," the vampire gritted through his teeth, hoisting her in.

Buffy just nodded, keeping her legs bent so as not to come in contact with the noisome sludge. Carefully, he folded her up into his arms. She sighed in relief, sagging against him. For a moment, the rest of the world seemed to fade away, as she rested her head against his chest, his arms around her.

"Guys?" Alec interrupted.

Buffy and Angel sprang apart quickly. Alec gestured to the gaping hole in the center of the hollow tree.

Willow peered down into it.

"How do we get down there?" she asked.

Alec smiled slightly. "Leave _this_ to me," he quipped.

Closing his eyes, he focused… and slowly, the shadows in the huge tree coalesced and swirled around the room. Alec opened his eyes, which had turned into pools of darkness once more, and pointed to the gaping hole. The shadows flowed and swirled around the mouth of the pit, before forming a solid ring of darkness around the hole. Slowly the darkness began to fill the ring and, in moments, the ring became a disk of absolute darkness. Alec lowered his arms and walked forward, stepping onto the makeshift platform. He turned to the others, his eyes still dark.

"We need to get going. We don't know how deep this goes and I don't know how long I can keep the darkness cohesive," he told them.

The others nodded, and, only with slight reluctance, stepped onto the disk. Buffy and Willow activated their flashlights as the platform began to slowly descend into the bowels of the tree.

The darkness seemed to be choking, claustrophobic. Buffy and Willow were having trouble breathing the stale air, Angel didn't have to breathe, and Alec didn't seem to notice, too wrapped up in keeping them all from plummeting to their deaths.

"This is like the tree-house from Hell."

Willow commented dryly, then shuddered as the beam from her flashlight caught a large snake winding its way slowly up the inside of the tree, not more that six inches from her face. She whimpered slightly and moved closer to Alec. Buffy leaned forward to peer at a large white stone. She shifted slightly and the stone fell backwards into her hands. She caught it and was nose to nose with a grinning skull. Startled, she dropped it; it fell from her hands and thudded onto the disk. She quickly pushed it off the platform with the tip of her foot and it tumbled end over end to disappear from sight. With a ragged sigh, she kept her eyes firmly on her feet.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the disk exited the tree into a vast, sand-filled cavern. Buffy looked up and around at the vast cave. The walls were made of brownish-blackish sand and seemed to curve upwards towards the ceiling, which was also made up of the strange sand, except for various tree roots, similar to the one they had exited. The roots drifted about thirty feet down before finally touching the ground. Buffy tested the sand with her foot, she sank slightly, but not dangerously and she leapt off the disk on to the thick sand. Willow and Angel followed and Alec, dispelling the darkness disk, joined them.

He exhaled hard. "That wasn't easy," he sighed wearily.

They nodded and continued to pan around with flashlights, taking in the chamber.

Willow whistled softly.

"This place is like a giant ant nest," she observed.

Buffy turned to her. "Will, ping the stone again," she whispered.

Willow looked back at her.

"Huh? Oh right."

Closing her eyes, she chanted the incantation, the first ping sounded off, soon followed by the second somewhere behind them.

Willow gestured with her flashlight. "This way," she whispered.

Buffy and Alec quickly flanked her, Angel guarding the rear, scanning the darkness with his vampire eyes. They walked a short distance and came upon a large wall with a series of small crawlspaces.

Willow shined her light down the small holes.

"Dead end," she reported.

Angel kneeled down by one of them and inhaled.

"This one leads somewhere, I can smell something coming from it," he told them quietly.

Buffy crouched down and shined her light down the narrow tunnel; the light shone all the way through and she thought she could see another room in the distance. She inhaled a musty dry odor.

"I've smelled something like that before," the Slayer murmured.

Angel nodded. "The Master's domain. It's the smell of death; ancient death," he replied.

Willow swallowed.

"Couldn't it smell like potpourri or cinnamon or something nummy?" she asked forlornly.

Alec smiled and kneeled down by the entrance.

"Well, it looks like we crawl." He peered into the dark, his eyes still roiling pools of night. "Tunnel goes straight for about thirty meters, then seems to slant downwards sharply." He looked back up at them. "Should be fun," he commented wryly.

Getting down on his stomach, he lodged himself into the tight cubbyhole and began to crawl, wedging his good arm against the wall and digging the elbow of his bad arm to propel himself forward. For a moment he considered arguing to his sister that he should take up the rear, so that his injuries wouldn't slow them all down.

"Don't even think it," came Buffy's voice from over his shoulder.

Alec smiled ruefully and continued to crawl. Willow went after him.

"I hate this," Buffy muttered before entering.

Angel smiled. "Sacred duty can be a real pain," he told her wryly.

She snorted in agreement and began to crawl into the tight space, Angel following.

They made it about twenty meters when they heard it: a soft scribbling sound, coming from inside the narrow walls. Alec turned his head slightly, his nose brushing up against the wall of the narrow crawlspace. Their breath rasped loudly in the tight space, sounding like death rattles. The only light came from Willow's flashlight, which was being nudged along by the witch's nose, inch by inch.

The redhead frowned, listening.

"Hey, what is that?" she asked.

Buffy tried to shake her head, but didn't have the room to.

"Beats me, I'm not the one who loiters underground if she can help it." She cast a glance to her left. "Angel?" she asked.

His voice came up from behind her.

"Sounds familiar, but I can't put my finger on it."

The vampire listened in the dark as the scribbling sound got louder. It sounded not like one sound, but millions upon millions of tiny sounds. His eyes widened in fear.

"MOVE!" he yelled.

Alec, who didn't bother asking, began crawling as fast as he could, Willow and Buffy following.

"What? What is it?" Buffy had to yell to be heard over the growing din of the chittering.

"Keep going!" Angel yelled. "Don't stop!"

Alec continued to crawl, gritting his teeth angrily; with his left arm crippled he was slowing everyone down, they would all die unless he did something!

"Must go faster," he whispered to himself and tendrils of darkness leaked out of his hands, propping him up. His hair transformed into thick ropes of tangible shadowstuff and he his pace quickened considerably.

Alec reached the end of the crawlspace, where it slanted down at a forty-five degree angle. Swinging his legs down over the hole, he spun around to look… and immediately went deathly pale.

A steady rolling black mass of… something was pursuing them voraciously, chittering madly. He reached out and grabbed Willow, dragging her towards the edge. She turned and looked back.

"Beetles!" she cried out in recognition.

Buffy followed after Willow frantically while Angel flipped over onto his back to see the swarm of insects advancing. He tried desperately to gauge how much time they had before the ravenous mass was upon them.

Alec turned to Buffy.

"Down!" he yelled.

She looked down. "We don't know what's down there!" she cried.

"Guys!" Angel cried, from his vantage point upon his back he was getting an especially good view of the swarming ravenous insects.

"Anywhere's better than here!" Alec retorted.

Buffy nodded, and crossing her arms, slid down the steep embankment. Alec grabbed Willow and dumped her down the hole. Scrabbling, Angel retreated from the swarm and fell backwards down the shaft. Alec crossed his arms, tucked his chin into his chest, and slid down. He looked up to see the beetle swarm boiling over the edge and begin to fall down upon him like rain. Yelling in terror, Alec threw his good arm up and with a humming _crack!_ a shield of darkness manifested over his arms, like an umbrella against the swarm of insects. They piled up on the shield as Alec continued to rocket down the tunnel.

Finally he emerged from the tunnel into freefall and, throwing his arms out, his coat exploded into a great wave of darkness with which he hovered over the ground. Heaving his arm, he came out from under the downpour of insects, gliding away to his left. Looking down he saw the swarm of creatures skittering away into the darkness. Scanning frantically, he sighed in relief as he saw Buffy, Willow, and Angel perched on a rock ledge in the wall. Adjusting his cloak he glided over to them. Buffy and Willow reached out to pull him in as the insects continued to gush like a black flood out of the ceiling to their right. Alec turned around, his coat shrinking back to its normal size. Finally the insect storm began to slow, then stopped completely as the last creature skittered away into the dark. The four of them sagged against the stone wall in relief.

Willow reached out to hug Alec tightly. "I don't ever, ever want to do that again," she whispered hoarsely.

Alec just nodded and turned to Angel.

"You hear something like that before?" he asked.

Angel nodded.

"I was once on a ship that had a serious termite problem. During the day, you could hear them chewing through the hull," he sighed. "Of course, I wasn't in a one by one shaft, at the time, being chased by millions of them."

Buffy smiled, shakily. "Well, sacred duty can be a pain," she reiterated his words to him.

Angel snorted gently and looked around.

"Whole place smells like death," he muttered.

Buffy nodded. "Not exactly Holiday Inn material," she replied.

Carefully, she began to crawl down the stone embankment to the sandy floor below. Angel caught her hand.

"Don't," he warned her.

She frowned.

"Why not?" she asked.

Angel gestured to the sandy floor.

"Old vampire trick - sleep in the earth and listen for the food to come to you." He gestured to the vast sandy plain that seemed to stretch on forever. "A lot of vampires could fit in there," he told her grimly.

Buffy nodded and climbed back onto the embankment.

"Okay, so how do we do it?" she asked.

Angel looked around and pointed.

"This ledge seems to follow the wall all the way to the end of the cavern." He turned to Willow. "Can you ping the stone again?" he asked.

She nodded and repeated the spell; this time, the time between the two sounds was only seconds apart.

"We must be close," she whispered, then gestured down the cavern. "This way."

Carefully, their backs against the sandy wall, they sidestepped along the ledge, careful not to dislodge any stones off the rocky catwalk.

"You know," Buffy chimed in. "Not to toss a fly into your logic ointment, Angel, but wouldn't the torrential downpour of insects have already woken up anyone snoozing in the ground?"

The vampire shook his head.

"I doubt it. Vampires that sleep in the ground learn to ignore sounds like that. It's steady, regular sounds like footsteps that tend to get your attention," he replied.

Alec, not taking his eyes off his footing on the ledge, turned his head slightly towards the vampire.

"You, uh… speaking from experience?" he asked.

"Do you really want to know?"

"No, not really."

Willow leaned forward. "Hey, guys, I think I see the-"

…And with a snarl, a rotted corpse burst from the wall behind Willow and tackled her to the sandy floor below.

"Willow!"

Alec cried, leaping from the ledge and landing before the zombie. It looked up and snarled at him, its face contorted in bestial rage. Alec lashed out with his hand; a tendril shot out and severed its head, sending it rolling away. The zombie fell dead upon Willow. Alec raced over and helped her to her feet.

"Are you all right?" he asked rapidly.

She nodded her head.

"Aside from being terrified out of my head, yes, fine, thank you. How are you?"

Alec started to smile when his eyes fell on a patch of earth beginning to shift just above Buffy's head.

"Buffy, Angel, DOWN!" he cried.

They leapt off the ledge just as another zombie came bursting out of the wall above them. It landed in front of Buffy, who rolled forward and lashed out with her foot, catching the corpse behind the knee. The leg snapped off like brittle bone and the creature tumbled down. Buffy brought her foot up and then down in a vicious axe kick to the zombies head. There was a loud crunch and the creature lay still.

Angel gestured to the floor.

"We've got company!"

They all turned to look as clawed hands began working their way out of the ground. Zombie after zombie rose from the soft earth, snarling quietly.

"Okay, these odds suck," Alec commented. Grabbing Willow's hand he turned to the others. "Run!" he yelled.

Buffy and Angel joined them as they ran, dodging newly awakened zombies.

"Did I ever tell you… how much… I hated those… old zombie movies?" Buffy gasped as she ran.

Angel shook his head.

"They never… bothered me," he replied.

Buffy shook her head.

"Well, then you just weren't… paying attention," she replied.

He grinned and, with a cry, suddenly dropped from sight. Buffy stopped in her tracks.

"ANGEL!" she cried out.

Angel looked down to see a pair of bony hands gripping him at his ankles and advancing on him; the hands turned out to belong to a pale woman with dark hair and a crazed wide-eyed expression in her eyes. For a moment, Angel had flashbacks to Drusilla, but beyond the impressions of dark hair and madness, there was little similarity.

"Whoa, check out Beatrix Lestrange!" Buffy commented before turning to Angel. "You want to take her?"

"Rise my children!" the woman cried out in a voice that definitely suggested at being unhinged and, instantly, more corpses rose from the ground.

"I got her. You got the minions?" Angel asked.

"I got 'em!"

"Goody," Angel commented grimly and together the two warriors charged.

Angel lashed out with a fist. The vampire - because she had to be one, nothing else was usually this strong - batted it aside and responded with a brutal punch, knocking Angel to the ground.

Buffy moved to help, but fell over. Whirling onto her back, she gasped in horror as two pairs of hands grasping her ankles quickly became two zombies, holding her with terrifying strength. One of them placed an icy hand on her shin and suddenly a wash of paralyzing numbness engulfed her body. All the strength left her body and she was barely able to move her head as the zombies picked her up like a rag doll. She looked up past Angel to see Alec and Willow surrounded by zombies. Alec's darkness tendrils were cracking like whips, severing heads where they came in contact with the shambling horde.

They were surrounded and wouldn't last much longer. Buffy moaned in fright as she turned her eyes back to Angel who was still fighting the vampire. Suddenly, the woman shot a hand out towards Angel's chest.

"Mortuus!" the vampire cried.

There was a flash of green light and Angel howled in pain, falling to the ground, clutching his chest.

Buffy tried to call out again, but could only moan. Angel looked down disbelievingly at his chest, the skin there had become dark gray and corpselike and it burned like nothing he'd ever felt before. Wheezing he rolled over onto his back. The vampire looked down at him smugly before turning to the zombies.

"Enough!" she commanded.

The zombies attacking Alec and Willow ceased and stood silently. The vampire gestured to the fallen Angel and the paralyzed Buffy. Alec gave her a grin nearly as unhinged as her own.

"Let's see what you've got," Alec whispered almost sensuously. It made Willow shiver to hear it, even as she sought shelter in his company.

As zombies moved to surround Angel and Buffy, the female vampire charged the young man, throwing kicks and punches that he blocked, albeit clumsily, with only one eye and one arm.

"How wonderful! You are already partially wrapped!" she tittered, gesturing to his bandages.

Alec sneered back at her and smashed his skull into her face. She roared in pain like a wounded animal and reached out, touching him.

"Mortuus!" she cried out.

Alec screamed and spun away.

"No!" Buffy wailed in fear for her brother.

And just as quickly, with a screech that sounded utterly inhuman, Alec whipped back around to face his attacker.

"Wanna try again?" he rasped.

The female vampire gasped. Alec's bandages had rotted off his face, revealing a slick writhing mass of tiny tentacles slithering in and out of his skull, glistening wetly as cauliflower shaped tumors throbbed and pulsed in and out of his head.

"My god!" the female vampire cried out.

Alec grinned obscenely; half his teeth had become needle-like fangs and blackish yellow ooze leaked out from between them. With a growl, he reached down and tore his sling free. His left arm now terminated into three writhing tentacles that whipped and cracked, hissing slightly.

"If you insist," Alec croaked…

…and then struck at the woman, quick as a snake. The tentacles bit into her undead flesh and she screamed in pain for a moment. Then, suddenly, her form shifted to become a wraith that hissed and wailed as she fled away from the half-man, half-monster. Alec pursued, his tentacle arm wrapped around the head of a zombie that got too close and crushed it like a grape.

The vampire reformed next to Buffy and Angel and raised her hands high. They began to glow green even as she eyed Alec's advancing form in horror.

"Stop monster! I shall send us all to the grave if you do not!"

"I promise you, you will never have the chance," Alec croaked, drool leaking from his distended jaw.

"Alec…" Buffy whispered softly.

Alec focused his good eye on her.

"Don't… become… a monster. I can… save us. Just please… please stop… for me."

For a moment, Alec was torn, he had all the power he needed right here, right now. He could kill this woman, kill these zombies, kill everything, get the stone, save his friends, he could do it all!

But this was his sister and she had asked him to do this for her.

With a nod, Alec let his arms go slack.

"I believe in Buffy Summers," was all he said.

"Take them to the cells. Let them have their last few living moments spent in each others company."

The female vampire turned to Buffy and smiled thinly.

"Take her to Mercurio," she commanded.

The zombies surrounded Willow and Alec, although they did not separate them and herded them out of the room. Another pair of zombies picked up the moaning Angel and dragged him away.

"Angel…" Buffy managed to whisper.

The female vampire turned back to her and smiled.

"Not for much longer," she replied smugly.

The woman gestured and the zombies carried her away.

Buffy was brought to a squat clay structure. Two zombies stood guard; as she approached, they wordlessly pushed a rotting wooden door open. The zombies dragged her into the room, and closed the door behind them. Buffy was starting to get some feeling back in her body as the zombies dumped her limply into an oversized plush chair opposite a roaring fire. She looked around the room, taking in her surroundings. The room was dark, but clean; the only light coming from the crackling fireplace. Shadows danced on the walls as some sort of sweet smell hung in the air. The door opposite her opened and a shadowy figure entered. He was concealed by the flickering darkness in the room as the zombies bowed in reverence. One of the zombies handed him Mr. Pointy, then rejoined his partner.

"Leave us," a dry voice rasped.

The zombies bowed once more and left the room, leaving Buffy alone with the man.

"Where are my friends?" she rasped, her mouth still numb.

The shadowy figure shifted slightly to regard her.

"The woman has been buried," he informed her. "After the ritual tonight is completed, they will be transformed into my servants." There was a pause and Buffy could imagine the evil creature smiling. "She will be a powerful weapon in my army," he mused.

"And my brother?"

"Yes, him. Your brother, as you call him, is… unusual."

"Yeah, he made an impression on your little helper."

"That, in and of itself, is noteworthy. Nyssa, my 'little helper', as you call her, does not impress easily. What do you know of his power?"

"I know he could kick your ass."

"Mine and yours, I assure you. And all things that exist." His profile turned slightly, a tilt of the head to suggest consideration. "The powers of life and death seem to hold little sway over him. Whatever consumes him from within is stronger than even the grave. It appears his darkness goes beyond death, into the void that lies between the stars." The creature's tone took on an amused sound. "I look forward to performing a proper dissection."

"You bastard!" Buffy hissed through clenched teeth.

There was a dry chuckle, rasping with decay.

"Perhaps," the shadow shrugged. "As for the vampire, he is beyond salvation."

Buffy looked up suddenly.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

The creature began to step into the light.

"The effects of the grave rot are debilitating and painfully fatal."

He stepped fully into the light and Buffy gasped in horror.

What had once been a vampire was now a rotted shell; the skin on his face had melted off, making it look like nothing more than a horrific mask. What remained hung like tattered shreds from his yellow skull. His nose had rotted off and the lips as well, revealing sharp teeth. His skin was yellow and gray and his eyes a milky white. Black clumps of hair stuck out in patches on his skull. The vampire put a skeletal hand on his chest and bowed.

"As you can fully see," he finished, smiling grotesquely.

"What are you?" Buffy breathed.

The creature rasped with laughter.

"Not all vampires are as blessed as your Angel. The price for knowledge of the grave can be high indeed," he replied, his teeth grinding against each other in a sound that turned Buffy's stomach.

"Mercurio," she stated simply.

The decayed vampire bowed again.

"In the flesh… or what's left of it," he smiled gruesomely.

"How…?" she asked in morbid curiosity.

Mercurio cocked his head to the side with a cracking of vertebrae.

"The powers that I wield, that my followers wield, it takes its toll on the body," he explained, sitting down opposite her. "Your friend Angel, has felt the power. I imagine he's not feeling well at all at this point." He commented dryly, grinning a skull's grin. He turned his attention to the stake in his hand. "This," he gestured, "will be quite useful," he assured her sinisterly.

Buffy snorted, getting back some of her bravado.

"Why? You going to give it back to me and let me turn you into instant soup-mix?" she retorted.

Mercurio shook his near-fleshless skull. "Not quite."

He closed his eyes slightly and a pair of zombies entered the room.

"Take her to the cell and keep her there until the ritual," he instructed.

The zombies nodded mutely and grabbed the Slayer, roughly yanking her to her feet.

"I'll be back for you, you great walking morgue!" Buffy yelled at him. "Count on it!"

Mercurio smiled.

"Oh, I'm sure," he replied quietly, stroking the stake covetously.

The zombies heaved Buffy into a cage made of bones and closed the door. She threw herself against the bars, but they were sturdy.

"Buffy?" a weak voice gasped.

Buffy whirled around. Angel was lying in a cot facing away from her.

"Angel!"

She rushed to his side; weakly he tried to push her away.

"Don't come any closer," he warned.

Ignoring his protests, she turned him towards her… and nearly died.

Angel's face and body were aging rapidly. His skin had turned gray, his face wrinkled and stained with pockmarks, the skin around his face hung on his bones like wet paper. The brown of his eyes had faded, obscured by cataracts. He was coughing and wheezing.

"Buffy… are you...?"

He couldn't finish and sagged against the bars. Buffy placed a hand over his eyes, trying not to notice the oozing sores leaking from his brow.

"Oh God, Angel," she whispered, stripping off her coat and wrapping it around him.

He coughed again and took her hand in his own wasted hand.

"I'm dying," he whispered hoarsely, sounding almost amused at the idea.

Buffy shook her head through tears.

"You're not dying! Nobody's dying! I'm going to find Alec and Willow and get you cured and we are getting out of here!" she told him fervently.

Angel's eyelids fluttered, his eyes rolled back into his head. Buffy roared and lashed out against the bars.

"What the hell did you DO to him?!" she raged.

The female vampire from earlier smiled slightly.

"The powers of death have robbed him of his immortality." She gestured to the decrepit Angel. "That is his body catching up with him for his centuries' worth of unnatural youth," the vampiress smiled smugly.

Buffy narrowed her eyes in hate.

"I'm going to get out of here, and I'm going to kill all of you," she whispered, her voice lethal.

The vampire smirked and gestured to two zombies. They shambled towards the cell door and unlocked it.

"I sincerely doubt that," the vampiress commented as Buffy was dragged out of the cell.

Angel feebly reached after her and collapsed. Buffy shot an anguished look over her shoulder at her dying compatriot before being dragged to a large circle of fire. The zombies fastened her to a rack made of skeletons and left her there to wrestle against the restraints, which were skeletal hands. Mercurio walked towards her, smiling, holding Mr. Pointy in his own skeletal hands.

"Good evening, Slayer," he rasped. "I trust you have been made comfortable?" he asked mockingly.

Buffy rolled her eyes.

"Question, Skeletor. Well, actually two. One, does that whole 'decomposing walking bone heap' look go over well with the ladies, and two, why do all villains feel the need to ask stupid questions?" she snarled.

Mercurio smiled gruesomely.

"You are, of course, correct, I care little for your comfort." He bowed and turned to the assembled vampires. "Tonight, you will witness my transcendence," he smiled, holding up the stake, "with this."

Buffy snorted.

"What are you going to do, stake yourself into a higher consciousness?" she asked sarcastically.

Mercurio favored her with patronizing smile.

"Watch and learn, Slayer."

He smiled and walked over to her, and with one quick movement, impaled the stake through her shoulder. She bit her lip and tried not to cry out as he slowly twisted the stake in the wound, causing blood to dribble out of her shoulder. With a snarl, he ripped the stake out of her, causing her to gasp in pain. He leered covetously at the blood dripping off the stake, before turning to her.

"The blood is the life, yes?"

He put the portion of his skull that had once housed his nose to the gory stake and inhaled deeply.

"But this weapon, it reeks of death, of young life cut short," he leered at her. "It will be perfect."

"It's really… not in your color," Buffy bit out.

Mercurio just grinned and turned to a large plate on a bone pedestal. Placing the bloody stake in the center, he brought his fingernails under a rotted tatter of skin on his cheek and slowly began to peel it back. Buffy felt sick as the rotted vampire finished and wrapped the strip of dead flesh around the stake. Gesturing to a set of torches, they burst to life as he began to chant, the acolytes humming, mantra-like.

"Powers of death, hear me, your most impious servant."

He raised his hands over his head and brought them down slowly, fanning them over the plate, which had begun to sizzle for no reason.

"Take this offering, of blood and flesh, call forth thy most polluted death. Phantasm most profane," he chanted.

Bringing a finger to his robes, he slid them off. Buffy choked back bile as she saw that almost his entire body had rotted away, leaving yellow bone and clumps of gray flesh.

"Bring forth from death, to become my slave. Bring forth, o' powers of decay, essence of murder and of pain," his voice rose to a crescendo, "bring forth death!" he screamed, holding his hands high in the air.

For a second nothing happened and Buffy snorted loudly.

"Too bad, huh, Merc? Don't feel bad, though, one should never pass up an opportunity to strip naked in publ-"

She stopped as she felt a chill pass through her. She exhaled and gaped in surprise as her breath crystallized into a chilly mist. A slow moaning sound began to fill the room. Buffy looked around fearfully as Mercurio's hideous face broke into a grin.

"She comes! At my command!" he whispered exaltedly.

There was a low wail that blew through the room, whirling around the stake; the drops of blood dripping from it continued to hit the pan, which was sizzling madly at this point. Suddenly, the whole pan burst into green flame. Buffy's eyes widened as a face appeared in the flame, a face she recognized.

"Oh God," she whispered, "Kendra…"

Kendra's soul wailed in pain as Mercurio reached forth and, with a cackle of triumph, plunged his hand into her, pillaging her soul and absorbing it into his rotted body. There was a brief flash of light as Mercurio's body was consumed in green fire. His laughter, at first rasping, became deeper and booming. Buffy gaped as new flesh began to stretch over his bones, regenerating decayed tissue. The acolytes had moved away in awe of the profane spectacle.

There was another ghostly wail of pain as the last of the green flame disappeared into Mercurio's regenerated body. The creature collapsed onto the floor, hands over his face. What had once been a rotted corpse was now a fully formed, muscular, black-skinned man. An acolyte cautiously stepped forward.

"Lord Mercurio?" he whispered.

The man stood and faced Buffy, causing the Slayer to gasp - the face was a mixture of both Mercurio's and Kendra's features. The man opened his eyes, revealing green flames in their sockets.

"Not anymore," Mercurio replied in a familiar Jamaican accent, before throwing his head back and howling with wicked laughter.

Buffy stared at him in horror.

"What did you do?" she whispered.

Mercurio shook his head and pointed.

"Oh, no, my dear, what did _you_ do?" he taunted. "It was _your_ blood that let me access the soul of a Slayer, and _you_ brought the item that let me chain her to this realm long enough to…" he grinned as his face changed into that of a vampire, "…suck her dry!" he rasped.

Buffy paled. "You… raped Kendra's soul?" she asked in disbelief.

Mercurio chuckled.

"Just the parts I wanted - the power, the strength - the rest…" he made a dismissive gesture, "…like so much spiritual refuse," he replied grinning.

Two acolytes wrapped him in a black robe. He smiled and stretched his arms.

"Ah, the feeling of blood flowing through my veins." He grinned manically and turned back to the Slayer. "So, this is what it is to be a Slayer." He inhaled deeply. "It's incredible."

Buffy shook with anger.

"You're a freak," she whispered. "You may have stolen Kendra's soul, but you're not a Slayer!" she spat defiantly.

Mercurio grinned.

"Oh, you're quite right, I am not merely a Slayer."

He flexed a muscular arm and reached out to grasp a stone. His hand glowed in green light and the stone crumbled into dust.

"I command the forces of life and death. I can kill with a touch. I am not a Slayer, I am a _GOD_!" he cried out.

The acolytes fell to their knees in worship. Mercurio gestured to the hands of bone holding Buffy's hands, they popped open and Buffy stumbled forward. Mercurio grinned and beckoned.

"Come, Slayer, once I defeat you, I wonder what power _two_ Slayers' souls will imbue me with?"

He laughed again as Buffy settled into a fighting stance, trying to ignore her aching shoulder and the fact that if she lost this fight, she'd not only lose her life…

…She'd lose her soul.

Buffy snapped out a kick to Mercurio's head, he blocked it and backhanded her hard, sending her to the ground.

Mercurio smirked. "You're going to have to do better than that," he taunted.

Buffy did a handstand and kicked up with both feet, catching him under the chin and sending him stumbling away.

"How's that?"

She asked, before launching into a series of punches. Some were blocked, but a few made it through his defenses, causing him to flinch. Mercurio grabbed her arm and, twisting it around her back, shoved her towards the sizzling plate. She collided hard into it and sent it tumbling with her atop it. Rolling over onto her back just in time to see Mercurio's foot descending in an axe kick, she gasped and lurched away, the blow missing her narrowly. She lashed out with a foot aimed towards his face, but he caught it and sent her sprawling away. She winced in pain as she landed heavily on her wounded shoulder.

Buffy tried to beat back desperation; it was like trying to fight a powerful vampire AND a Slayer. Shaking her head to clear it, she did a handspring to her feet and spun round, sending a spinning back fist to the vampire's jaw. He flew back and stumbled as Buffy resumed the offensive, raining blows on his head.

Mercurio snarled, his face shifting to its vampiric visage in frustrated rage and he beat her to the ground. She fell on her hands and knees as Mercurio raised his bare foot and slammed it down hard into the base of the Slayer's spine; she screamed in pain as he slowly twisted the foot back and forth, the sound of cracking vertebrae filling the room. Buffy's eyes opened wide, and suddenly focused on an object just out of her reach.

Lying next to the overturned plate was Kendra's stake.

Buffy made a lunge for it… and stopped short as Mercurio brought his foot up and back down hard on the back of Buffy's knee. There was a resounding crack as Buffy's kneecap erupted in fire. She cried out again as Mercurio snatched her up by the throat, flaming eyes glowing green with glee.

"I wonder if I'm going to enjoy being you," he taunted.

Slowly, he put his hand over her heart and, with an excruciating jolt, a green flame erupted from her chest, slowly pouring into Mercurio. He had his eyes closed in rapture as he drained Buffy's life essence away.

For an agonized moment, Buffy was inside him and she could see herself being killed. And see that someone was with her.

"Buffy, do not surrender," Kendra's voice called out from somewhere around her. "We are here."

Buffy's eyes squeezed shut, trying to block the pain. Suddenly, the arm holding her shuddered as green flame leapt _out_ of Mercurio's body into Buffy's.

Mercurio frowned in puzzlement.

"How…?" he asked; his eyes had gone from Kendra's brown, to Buffy's green.

Buffy suddenly felt a wave of power fill her. She opened her eyes, and, gritting against the pain, held her hand out towards the stake, lying on the ground.

"Sha me-en-den. Gesh-toog me-en-den," she gasped out, frowning as some part of her brain realized that she wasn't speaking English.

Mercurio turned to her in shock and wrapped his other hand around her throat, choking the life out of her.

"Die!" he cried. "Why won't you die?"

Buffy gasped once and, with a convulsion that shook her whole body, the stake flew to her hand. With a roar, Buffy plunged the stake into Mercurio's heart. He gasped in pain and shock, dropping the Slayer and severing the soul draining.

"_That's_ what it feels like to be a Slayer," Buffy snarled as the vampire put his hands over his head, green light showing through his skin as his body began to crack like hot stone doused in water.

"No! This cannot be! She… is mine!" he roared. "NO!"

He cried out one last time and, with a scream of rage and pain, his body exploded, sending decayed shards and vampire fragments spraying everywhere. Buffy shielded herself from the explosion and looked back. Kendra was standing there, bathed in light, looking at her proudly.

"You did well, Buffy," Kendra told her, her voice echoing oddly. "You've taken the first step." The glowing soul smiled.

"The others are waiting." She gestured out past the acolytes, who were looking pretty worried about the destruction of their leader. "Find them," Kendra continued, "and thank you."

Kendra leaned down and picked up Mr. Pointy, bringing it to her forehead in a salute.

"Hey, no big," Buffy said casually, reaching out to the ghost gently.

"I still don't hug."

Buffy laughed even as Kendra began to glow until she could not look anymore. When her vision cleared, Kendra was gone. Buffy smiled slightly.

"Thanks, girlfriend," she whispered.

Buffy slowly stood, hobbling up onto her injured knee; she turned to the assembled vampires.

"Okay, so, who's next?" she growled.

The vampires looked at each other, looked back at the bloody Slayer, and ran like hell.

Buffy braced herself carefully and stuck a leg out, tripping the female vampire from earlier. She sprawled to the ground as Buffy spun her onto her back.

"You have once chance to live," she growled. "The antidote for the grave rot!" she demanded.

The vampiress gestured frantically to Mercurio's chambers.

"In there!" she cried out.

Buffy grabbed the vampire and dragged her along, hobbling towards the chamber door. Shoving it open, she looked down at the two zombies, now reverted back to lifeless corpses, with a snort of derision.

"Next lifetime, Mercurio, delegate a little."

She turned and entered the study. Hobbling over to a shelf full of jars, she reached over and checked the nearest one.

"No," she muttered, tossing it over her shoulder; it landed with a crash.

"No, no, no, no."

There was a pile of broken glass behind her. She reached out and when her fingers brushed against a clear blue bottle, she stopped. Some… instinct told her that this was the correct vial. She took it down and uncorked it, inhaling deeply. The liquid smelled clean, like a snowy winter day. Buffy smiled and then cast a fierce look at her prisoner.

"Stay!" she commanded.

The other vampire, apparently unhinged by the death of her master, merely nodded, babbling nonsensically to herself.

Buffy hobbled over to Angel's cell. Unlocking the door, she limped and dropped to one knee, gritting in pain. She cradled the dying vampire's head in her hands.

"Drink," she whispered, putting the bottle to his lips.

Angel licked blackened lips and gently began to swallow tiny mouthfuls of the elixir as Buffy gently tilted the bottle. The results were miraculous. The dead gray skin began to peel off, revealing fresh healthy skin underneath; the pustules closed and flaked off, his eyes cleared of the cataracts. By the time the bottle was finished, Angel didn't look a hundred percent, but it was certainly an improvement. Buffy helped him to his feet, trying not to put a lot of weight on her damaged knee.

"Angel, are you all right?"

He coughed and nodded.

"We need to find the others."

Angel pointed to a large mound of sand in the center of the room.

"There," he coughed. "That's the burial mound; Willow and Alec are in there."

Carefully leaning Angel against the cell wall, Buffy hobbled over to the giant mound, and plunged both her hands into the sand, sifting them back and forth. She growled in frustration, it was like looking for a needle in the haystack. Her fingers brushed against something hard and she cleared away the sand, revealing a collection of white bandages. Digging rapidly, Buffy gripped the white bandages and slowly pulled a mummified body out of the sand. It was weakly thrashing from side to side. Buffy raced over to the wrapped up head, which was distinctly odd in that half of it was stained a wet black.

"Shhh, Alec, it's okay, it's me."

Digging her fingers into the material, she ripped it aside, unwrapping his head hurriedly. A few layers later Alec's eyes shined through. Reaching up, she gripped the edge of the material and jerked down hard. Alec's mouth and nostrils were exposed as he gasped loudly for air, coughing hard. He sucked down several more lungfuls of air.

"Willow!" he gasped out.

Buffy nodded hurriedly and closed her eyes again, trying to focus on her friend. There… no, _there_, very faint. Buffy dove into the sand and dug madly. Angel came over and helped Alec out of the wrappings.

"Willow!" she cried out hysterically.

Alec was suddenly next to her, plunging his good hand into the earth, hurling sand away frantically and growling in frustration at his tentacled appendage that could not dig as easily or as quickly as his hand once had. Angel was right next to them digging furiously.

"I've got her!" Angel yelled.

Carefully he dragged the mummified girl out of the sand. Alec dove to her, ripping away the bandages. Willow's face was ashen gray, her lips blue.

"Willow!" Alec cried out.

Angel put a hand to her chest as Buffy was frantically tearing the bandages off her.

"I can't find a pulse!" Angel reported.

Alec leaned over and began performing mouth-to-mouth as Buffy began C.P.R.

"Don't you do this, Willow!" Buffy sobbed, pounding her friend's lifeless chest. "Willow!" she screamed.

Willow lay still, Alec was forcing her chest to rise with his breath. Finally he brought his mouth from hers, resting an ear to her mouth.

"Nothing!" he yelled.

Buffy sobbed as she pounded her friend's chest,

"No!" she cried, hitting her chest over and over.

Angel held her hands. "Buffy, it's over, she's gone," he told her mournfully.

Buffy struggled against him, sobbing and screaming. Alec had a hand over his eyes, his fist clenched to the point that the skin on his knuckles split.

"Willow," he croaked stroking her face tenderly.

Bringing her head up, he buried his face in her hair and cried.

"I couldn't save her…" Buffy whispered brokenly.

Angel shook his head.

"Buffy, you did all you could," he tried to console her. "You can't raise the dead."

Buffy felt her heart stop; pulling away from him, she looked at him with shock.

"What did you say?" she whispered hoarsely.

Angel frowned. "I said you did all you could Buffy," he repeated.

Buffy shook her head vehemently.

"After that, Angel! What did you say?!" she shrieked at him.

He flinched at her histrionics.

"I said 'you can't raise the dead'," he repeated.

Buffy whirled around to Alec, still cradling his lover's body, shaking with grief.

"Alec! Get Willow in the center of the circle!" she demanded.

Alec's head shot up, his reddened eyes wide in puzzlement. She whirled around to Angel.

"Help me up!" she demanded.

Angel hurried to obey.

"Buffy, what are you doing?" he asked as Alec carried Willow's body to the center of the ring of fire.

Buffy ignored him and gestured to the bone rack.

"Alec, put her in there and lean it back!" she demanded.

Alec obeyed, puzzled as he fastened her body into the skeletal rack.

Angel frowned. "Buffy, what are you doing?" he asked again.

Buffy whirled on him.

"Help me set this plate up!" she replied curtly, trying to drag the bone pedestal upright with her one good arm.

Angel moved to help her.

"Hurry up!" she screamed at him. "It's not too late!"

Angel started and helped her move the pedestal back into position.

"Too late for what?" he demanded.

Buffy turned to him.

"To bring Willow's soul back from the dead," she replied quietly.

Angel's eyes bulged in shock.

"Buffy, that's…" He struggled for words.

"I can't raise the dead! Fine! But I know someone who might!"

Buffy dragged her prisoner out towards the assembled party. With a little coercion on Angel's part, they'd been able to find a spell book Mercurio kept hidden in his chambers that, theoretically, could do what they needed done.

At a price.

"But the magic will destroy me!" the female vampire whimpered.

Alec grabbed a handful of her hair and jerked her close.

"Lady, if you don't cooperate, I guarantee you, I will redefine 'Eternity' for you."

Alec brought his deformed, writhing face closer to her and she flinched.

"There are things worse than death..."

The tiny writhing things on his face began to bore into the flesh of her cheek, probing underneath as Alec opened his mouth and _something_ wet slithered out to caress Nyssa's cold skin.

"…And I'm one of them."

Defeated, Nyssa sagged.

"She's been infected with ghoul venom," the woman said brokenly. "It'll need to be purged from her body before we can proceed, and we need a healthy sample of her blood."

Angel reached down to the vampire woman's belt and took a glass knife.

"This should do," the vampire said simply. He turned to Alec. "Ghoul venom works into the extremities first which causes the paralysis; blood closer to her heart has a better chance of being pure enough for this to work."

Alec nodded and, taking the knife, made a small cut on the inside of Willow's elbow, trying not to notice how hard he had to saw at her cold flesh to get the blood languidly oozing out from the wound. He handed the knife to Angel.

"Here."

Angel quickly dabbed the blade against his tongue and then spat.

"No good."

"Guys, we don't have a lot of time!" Buffy called out.

Alec took a hold of Willow's shirt. "Sorry about this, baby, I know you're shy."

He jerked and the shirt tore at the collar down the middle. He beckoned frantically at Angel, who quickly gave him the knife. Carefully, Alec made another incision just above her heart, near her breast, with excruciating slowness. He handed the blade to Angel, who tasted it.

Angel looked dubious. "Maybe."

"It'll have to do," Alec replied.

"The venom must be purged from her body," the female vampire said dully. "All her blood must leave her body."

"Alec, use your darkness power on her," Buffy instructed and she quickly explained what she meant.

"You want me to WHAT?!" Alec cried out.

"Just do it!"

Alec nodded and then took a hold of Willow's head in his good hand, trying to keep his tentacle away from her.

"Angel, keep our friend honest?"

Angel sidled up behind the vampiress. She looked over her shoulder and smiled slightly.

"It's all right," she assured her. "I'm looking forward to this now."

"Are you?" Angel replied sarcastically.

"Oh, yes. You see, this ritual has been reputed to have such disastrous consequences for those involved that it has been known as the 'Rite of Profane Rebirth'," she confided.

With a growl, Alec whipped his tentacle around and buried it into Nyssa's spine. Pain so intense the woman could only gape and gurgle wracked her.

"The spinal column contains the highest concentration of nerve endings within the body and I am quite willing to spend the rest of my time torturing each and every last one of them until they break, unless you move your bloody arse!"

Nyssa just nodded hurriedly, death or even the torments of Hell she was sure awaited her would be more merciful than the pain this young man was inflicting on her. She began to chant.

"Powers of death, powers that be eternal, hear my plea," she began.

The torches on the wall began to flicker slightly.

"Powers of bone, of blood, of earth and soil, I beseech thee!" she called out loudly, her voice echoing strangely in the chamber.

"I summon forth the soul of Willow Rosenberg from beyond the veil!" she called out grandly.

She held her hand out. "I offer fire!"

Buffy placed a torch into her outstretched hand, and the vampiress thrust the burning flame into the plate; strange smoke began billowing out.

"And blood!" she cried out.

Buffy slid her fingers into her shoulder wound, gritting her teeth against the pain; she removed her fingers, now slick with her own blood, and flicked some drops onto the plate. Her blood began to pop and sizzle madly, and a low wail began to fill the room. Alec gasped as he noticed Buffy's and his breath began to billow like steam out of their mouths.

"Spirit world, here my plea! Bring forth that which was taken from this mortal coil!" Nyssa chanted, holding her hands over her head. "Bring me the soul of Willow Rosenberg, bring it now!" she cried.

A white mist began to swirl around Buffy. Angel and Alec gaped in astonishment.

"Bring it now!" her voice reached a screaming crescendo, and with a crack of thunder and a flare of light, the mist coalesced and slammed into Willow's body. The vampiress screamed as her body burst into flames.

Buffy whirled on Alec and called out. "NOW!"

Alec brought his mouth down to Willow's, the tentacles on the left side of his face latched onto her face like a parasite and he entered her mouth, pushing deep down into her throat, and flexing with all his might. Blackened blood began to ooze out of Willow's eyes, nose, and ears, as he purged her of all her blood.

"BRING IT NOW!!" Nyssa screamed one last time before she collapsed into white ash.

There was another flash of light, the whole chamber shook and reverberated with a thunderous rumble. Alec pulled himself free and Buffy brought the glass knife containing Willow's blood straight down into the girl's chest. Buffy, Angel, and Alec were knocked clean off their feet as a shockwave washed over them.

The ghostly wail reached a deafening pitch; there was a loud slam, then silence.

The torches lining the wall were extinguished as was the ring of fire. The bone pedestal was twisted and destroyed, the metal plate warped and crushed. Buffy lay on her hands and knees, panting in exhaustion; her hair, sweaty and ragged, clung to her forehead. Alec and Angel got to their feet and looked at the bone rack upon which Willow's body rested.

For a long moment there was nothing. Alec felt rage building in him; he opened his mouth to scream…

…And, with a loud shuddering gasp, Willow's eyes snapped open. She coughed hard and Alec raced over to her, ripping open the restraints and dragging her into an upright sitting position, pounding her back.

"Bring it up! That's right!" he was commanding her semi-hysterically, his eyes streaming with tears.

He kept pounding her back and Willow weakly held up a hand.

"Alec, you're going to put me in traction if you keep that up," she rasped.

Alec gasped and grabbed her face in his good hand, his eyes bored into hers with blazing intensity.

"Willow?" he asked, his voice shaking with emotion.

Gently, Willow reached up and stroked his face.

"Miss me?" she smiled weakly.

With a wild cry of relief, Alec gripped her in a tight embraced with his good arm, tears leaking out of his eyes. He kissed her head over and over.

"I love you," he whispered hoarsely.

Willow just nodded, holding him tightly. Buffy was being helped over by Angel; she gathered the pair in a hug of her own, sobbing out her fear and pain and relief. The three just held each other for a while, crying and laughing at the same time, before pulling away.

"What'd I miss?" Willow asked frowning.

Buffy laughed and wiped at her eyes.

"Buffy, you're hurt!" the redhead cried.

Swinging her feet down, she jumped from the table and nearly collapsed before Alec caught her in a strong grip.

"Sweetheart, you just came back from the dead, let's save the aerobics for later."

Picking her up in his arms, he carried her as if she weighed nothing; she just rested her head against his shoulder. Alec gave his sister a long look.

"Thank you," he whispered hoarsely.

Buffy smiled and nodded.

"Well, hey, she's been my friend a lot longer than your lover, but you're welcome just the same," she grinned.

Angel wrapped an arm around the Slayer, steadying her.

"What about the Everstone?" he asked.

Willow suddenly looked up from Alec's shoulder.

"There's something under the burial mound, like a door," she told them.

Alec carried his newly revived lover to the burial mound and gently set her down, propping her up against the sand.

"I'm just going to help Buffy dig, all right?" he asked, concerned.

Willow smiled and patted his hand.

"Go on, silly, I'm fine," she smiled reassuringly.

Alec smiled and kissed her fiercely, long and hard. Willow reached up to stroke his face. Finally, they broke apart. Alec kissed her face with almost bruising force.

"You are so amazing," he whispered.

Willow stroked his hair; he caught her hand and kissed it before turning to Buffy.

"Okay, you rest, Angel and I will dig."

Buffy was about to argue when Angel growled at her.

"Fine," she replied, sighing.

Angel rested her next to Willow, the two friends quickly joined hands, entwining each other's fingers tightly around the others. They smiled at each other.

"I'm okay, Buffy, really, I am," she shrugged. "I mean, okay for having just arisen from the grave," she quipped.

Buffy laughed and gathered her friend up in a gentle hug, trying not to bleed on her.

"I love you, Wills," she whispered.

Willow laughed. "I've been hearing that a lot today. I should die more often."

"NO!" Buffy and Alec both yelled, the latter looking up from his work, aghast.

Willow smiled and shook her head.

"Only kidding, being dead once was enough for me for right now," she smiled and stretched her legs out, resting her head on the Slayer's unwounded shoulder. Buffy rested her head on Willow's and together they sighed contently in relief.

Angel and Alec continued to dig for about an hour, before they felt something solid under the sand.

"Jackpot!" Alec called out.

Willow and Buffy both looked up as he and Angel cleared off the sand revealing a large door set in the ground with a rusted metal loop. Angel grunted and pulled hard on the loop. He strained and, with a loud sucking sound, the door opened, a blast of stale air rushing out, blowing Angel's hair back. He set the door down parallel to the entrance and peered in, there was a long series of stairs winding down into it.

"Doesn't look like anyone's been in here for a very long time," he commented. Looking back at Buffy and Willow, he continued. "Be a good place to hide something."

Alec nodded. "Okay, so, let's you and I go get the Everstone."

Angel nodded, before stumbling and sagging against the sand, his strength fading. Alec hurriedly caught him.

"Whoa! Maybe not you, refugee boy." He looked over at Buffy questioningly.

"Angel was super-aging, he's probably still not over it," she explained.

She struggled to her feet, wincing in pain. Willow helped her up.

"And you've been stabbed and your knee looks all puffy and icky," Willow observed.

Buffy shook her head.

"Willow, I'm going down there. I want this damn stone," she gritted.

Willow nodded and wrapped the Slayer's arm around her shoulders.

"Well, then I'm going with you," she replied, bracing the Slayer.

Angel got his second wind and came over to support Buffy's other arm. Alec dug into his pocket for a lighter and lit a torch, peering down the stairs.

"Okay, let's do this thing and get the hell out of here," Alec growled.

"Amen," the other three vowed in unison.

Alec took the lead with Angel and Willow helping the injured Slayer down the stairs. After what seemed like an endless time of winding stairs, they reached another door. Soft light could be seen emanating from the crack beneath the door. Alec carefully reached out and pushed it open slowly, already conjuring darkness.

"Oh, good, there you are," a familiar voice called out. "Do any of you perhaps know a four-letter term for Christmas?"

Alec gaped at the sight.

The old man from the graveyard, Oliver, was casually sitting in a chair, a jumbo pen pressed to his lips, thoughtfully peering down at a copy of the New York Times. He smiled up at the group through his beard.

"Well, hello, Alice, Bunny, Wilma, Angelina." He smiled and beckoned the stunned group into the room. "Come in, come in, no need to be shy."

There was a bark and a black Labrador came trotting into the room. Oliver glared at the dog.

"Oh, hush up, Mikey, be nice, these people have come a long way." He flashed the group an apologetic smile. "Pain-in-the-butt dog," he chuckled and sat down.

Angel found his voice first.

"What… how…?"

Oliver nodded.

"Well, Angelina, those sound like very important questions," he nodded sagely, "and for the life of me I can't answer any of them." He smiled quirkily at the group. "But, I can help you find what you came here for."

"The Everstone?" Willow asked breathlessly.

Oliver bobbed his head.

"You betcha, Wilma!" he grinned and got to his feet, before frowning down at the crossword puzzle. "You sure none of you know a four-letter term for Christmas?" he asked.

"Noel," Alec replied without thinking.

Oliver's bearded face broke into a wide grin.

" 'Noel'! " he laughed and scribbled something on the paper. "Perfect!" he grinned to the pair. "Was voted three time crossword champion back in Crabapple Cove," he chuckled and turned to the group.

"Well, you're looking for the stone or ain't ya?" he demanded querulously.

The group slowly hobbled towards him, Willow and Angel supporting Buffy, Alec at point. The old man smiled and led them into another room.

"Yup, here we go." He gestured to the room.

The group peered in… and froze in astonishment. There was a large bonfire set in a great stone protector in the center of the room, surrounded by a glittering ring of white sand. Light shined from giant gold mirrors set in a circle around the chamber, each one facing a different direction, but that wasn't the main attraction.

The room was completely filled with gems.

Big ones, small ones, of all shapes, sizes, and colors; the group looked around in awe. Each stone glittered brightly in the firelight.

"I know I've seen this in a movie," Alec muttered.

Buffy turned to him. "Which one?"

" 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'," he explained. "The last scene, Indy has to pick the right Holy Grail from a room full of grails."

"Did he pick the right one?" Willow asked.

Alec nodded.

"What happened if he picked the wrong one?" Buffy questioned worriedly.

Alec turned to her with a grave look. Buffy's face fell.

"I see," she replied grimly. She turned to Oliver. "I don't suppose you have any input to add?" she asked dryly.

The old man smiled apologetically and shook his head.

"Sorry, Bunny, free will and all that," he replied, truly sounding sorry.

Buffy sighed; she was in too much pain and too tired to get angry. Carefully, the group fanned out through the room, peering at each and every gem.

"The Everstone is that which balances light and dark," Alec muttered to himself, peering intently at each and every stone.

"Maybe we should find a gem that's made up of both light and dark stone?" Willow suggested.

Alec nodded. "Give it a shot," he replied.

The group searched high and low, but they could not find a stone that had both light and dark mixed together.

Angel sighed.

"This is getting us nowhere," he growled, kicking some sand from the ground, sending the sparkling granules flying into the air.

Alec froze.

"Light and dark combined." He looked down at the sand at his feet. "Light and dark inside us."

He looked around at the mirrors that reflected light, and, with a shock, he realized that there was no light, except that from the fire in the center, which couldn't be responsible for THIS much light.

"I've got it!" Alec cried out hurriedly. "Light and dark, light and dark!" he screamed with joy.

Everyone looked at him like he'd gone mad. He gestured.

"Willow, get to those mirrors, and focus all the light on the fire!"

She frowned, but obeyed. Alec spun to Angel.

"Angel, get a handful of sand and get ready to throw it into the fire when I tell you. Buffy, get on the other side of the fire and get some sand, too."

The pair looked at each other, then back at him.

"Just do it! Trust me!" Alec yelled.

They moved to opposite sides of the fire as Willow finished moving the mirrors, adjusting them so their light all shone into the fire. Alec grinned and pointed at the cavern walls.

"Look! The light from the mirrors doesn't pass through the fire!"

He was nearly delirious with excitement. The others turned to look and gasped. Sure enough, the reflected light passed into the fire, but not out. Alec grinned and aimed his hand towards the fire, a darkness tendril emerging from his arm.

"Okay, on the count of three, Angel, Buffy, throw the sand into the fire," he instructed.

They nodded and readied themselves. Alec grinned at the fire.

"Light and dark," he repeated. "Ready? One, two… three!"

With a heave, Buffy and Angel hurled the glittering sand into the fire, and, with perfect timing, Alec lashed out with the darkness tendril. The darkness collided with the glittering sand, which glowed in the light directed by the mirrors like a million stars. There was a bright flash of light as the fire roared and blazed up to become a towering inferno. There was a whooshing sound and the gems in the room all shattered, like worthless glass. A jolt of purple energy shot up the darkness tendril, slammed into Alec, and knocked him back to the ground. Then, just as suddenly, the fire died. Alec carefully got to his feet as he and the others peered into the blackened fire pit.

There, resting in some ash, was a large egg-shaped gem with a thousand different facets. It pulsed and hummed softly, glowing light surrounded by a ring of swirling darkness. They group grinned.

"The Everstone," Buffy breathed, gingerly reaching down to reverently pick it up.

The old man threw his head back and laughed.

"Ha ha! Good for you! I knew you could do it!" He grinned triumphantly down at the dog. "You owe me ten bucks," he declared smugly.

The dog whimpered and fled into the other room. Willow walked over to Alec, amazed.

"How did you know what to do?" she asked.

Alec grinned and gestured at Angel…

…with two hands.

"Alec, you're cured!" Willow cried out in delight.

Alec looked down at himself and marveled; he did indeed possess two normal looking hands. He brought them up to his face.

"My face?"

Willow came over and kissed him tenderly. "Beautiful, as always, but now less-"

"-unbalanced!" Oliver cried out in grinning, old-man glee. "That's what the Everstone does my boy: it brings balance and, I must say, you look much better for it!" he added with a chuckle towards Alec.

Alec laughed, the first real laugh he felt he'd had in ages.

"It is unbelievably good to be back," he said.

Oliver nodded. "Yeah, I'll bet it is, my boy. You just keep that stone on you and you'll be all right," he assured the younger man.

Buffy whooped with delight and hugged her brother's neck hard.

"So how _did_ you know what to do?" she asked.

Alec grinned his long-absent, and painfully missed, crooked grin and answered.

"Thank, Angel. When he kicked the sand, I noticed that the light from the mirrors made the sand kind of sparkle in the air. It made _every_ grain of sand sparkle. There was no way that all the mirrors, the way they were positioned, could make _all_ the sand sparkle. Then I remembered how you make glass," he grinned.

"Fire and sand," Angel replied.

Alec nodded.

"And as far as the light and darkness goes. Well, that was just a guess," he smiled wryly.

"And a darn tootin' good one, lad!" Oliver piped in.

He slammed Alec on the back hard enough to knock him forward.

"So, now that you got yer Everstone, what are you gonna do with the blasted thing?" he demanded.

Alec sighed and shook his head.

"Well, one down, two to go," Alec muttered.

Buffy looked up. "The Wordless Psalm or Hymn or whatever?" she asked

Alec nodded. "That would be my next guess, yeah."

Buffy sighed. It had taken them weeks to find the stone; how much longer would it take them to find the other two items?

Oliver noticed their glum faces.

"Hey! What's with the sourpusses? Y'all did great! Darn fine work, each and every one of you!" He smiled through his beard and herded them out of the room.

"Well, I'm willing to be you want to be getting back to the surface, don't ya? I can't blame you, I have awful neighbors, chanting all the time, raising the dead at all hours of the night." The old man shook his head and sighed disgustedly. "That's what I get for not getting myself a nice condo down in the Keys."

Buffy frowned at Oliver.

"You knew about the vampires?" she asked incredulously. "Who are you?" she demanded.

The old man grinned and waggled his bushy white eyebrows.

"Me? I'm a Pisces, I like water-skiing, Italian food, and long walks in the rain. You?" he replied.

Buffy sighed and shook her head.

"I'm sorry I asked," she muttered.

Oliver scratched his head confused.

"You don't like Italian food?" he questioned meekly.

Buffy tried to glare at the old man, but there was something about him that didn't let her stay angry with him. She sighed.

"I'm a lasagna girl myself," she replied.

Oliver grinned.

"Ah, a spinach girl! Yes, I can see that, now, builds strong bones, healthy teeth!" he nodded approvingly.

"Ummm… I think that's milk," Willow commented tentatively.

Oliver spun around to face her.

"It is?" he asked amazed.

She nodded.

"Hmmm… you know that might explain why my Corn Flakes didn't taste right, even with lots of sugar." He frowned at her. "You're sure it's milk and not spinach that fortifies your body with nine essential vitamins and nutrients?" he asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Willow nodded, and the older man harrumphed.

"Well, then, I guess I should stop trying to pour creamed spinach into my breakfast cereal," he commented thoughtfully.

Willow made a face.

"Excuse me, sir?" Buffy put forth. "Not to interrupt your fascinating, yet incredibly nauseating conversation, but we'd like to get out of here," she informed him.

Oliver bobbed his head.

"Oh, sure thing, you want me to just magic you up there?" he rolled up the sleeves of his dirty white sweatshirt. "I know a couple of humdingers, eye of newt, brain of toad." He frowned suddenly. "Or is it the other way around?" he muttered absent-mindedly.

Alec sighed. "Is there another way out of here? All of us are in pretty bad shape," he told him.

Oliver frowned.

"Maybe it's 'brain of mouse, eye of house'. No. Wait. That's not right either." He looked up at Alec, shaking himself from his musings.

"Whazat? Oh, sure, a way out!" he grinned and gestured to a large pile of enormous green leaves on the floor, just below a very large hole in the ceiling, "Just ride those up to the top, you'll be surface side in no time flat!" he assured them.

Angel frowned at the old man.

"Ride them?" he asked puzzled.

Oliver bobbed his head.

"You betcha! Best in foliage transportation there is. Warranty's still good for another two hundred years." He frowned and furrowed his brow. "I think…"

Buffy sighed and hobbled over to stand on one of the gigantic leaves.

"Whatever, this won't be the stupidest thing I've ever done."

She exhaled hard, favoring her uninjured leg. Alec, Willow, and Angel exchanged looks, sighed, and, hanging their heads in defeat, plodded over to the leaves, resigned to their fate that logic shall never _ever_ apply to any of them, ever again.

Oliver grinned at them.

"Well, then, be sure to keep your trays in the upright position and your chairs firmly stowed and locked away." He grinned, not noticing how badly mangled his imitation of the immortal airline advisory was. There was a bark, and Oliver turned to face a brown and white terrier.

"Oh, that's right, that reminds me!"

Lunging to the table, he snatched up the copy of the New York Times he was working on, and he peered at the paper.

"Does anyone know a four letter Hebrew term for 'truth'?" He peered at the paper. "And a three letter Hebrew term for 'death' that starts on the second letter of that first one?" he asked puzzled.

He got blank looks from everyone and sighed.

"Oh, well, guess it's not your fault. Too busy going to sock hops and drive-in movies." He sighed and shook his head. "Anyhow, enjoy your trip."

Buffy frowned.

"What do you mea-?"

The last word was lost in a shriek of surprise as Buffy's leaf rocketed into the air, carrying her with it up the hole. Angel, Alec, and Willow had time to swallow loudly before their own leaves followed suit. Grinning, and offering a mocking salute to the departing group, Oliver chuckled and turned back to his chair. He regarded the crossword puzzle intently, penning the letter 'A', he leaned back and stopped to admire his work.

Their names, _everybody's_, was in the crossword puzzle. Buffy, Xander, Spike, Angel, Giles, Willow, Alec, Faith, Anya, and Dawn. Each one entwined with the other, forming a crossword puzzle; the _only_ thing on an otherwise completely blank version of the New York Times newspaper. Oliver smiled, crossing the 'A' in Angel's name. The dog barked again, and Oliver scowled at him.

"Oh, hush up, Michael." He turned and scowled at the paper. "You didn't know 'noel', either."

Harrumphing, Oliver got to his feet, which were clad in bright white sneakers with yellow smiley faces on them, and walked out of the room, the dog following.


	27. Chapter 24 Becoming Part 1

"They should have been back by now," Spike growled for the umpteenth time, pacing back and forth like a caged animal.

The others looked up at him.

"Spike, man, chill," Xander chimed in. "I'm sure Buff and the bad ass brigade can handle anything that gets thrown at them," the man reassured, though he was getting antsy himself.

"Yeah," Anya commented, "I mean, who cares if they've entered a labyrinth of death ruled by vampires who control the living dead and easily outnumber them?" She shrugged. "It's not like they're dying hideous painful deaths as we speak."

Everyone turned to glare at her and Spike snarled before continuing pacing.

"What?" Anya demanded.

"Honey? Don't help," Xander instructed.

Anya frowned and folded her arms.

"Someone's coming!" a sentry cried out.

The others rushed to their feet and ran towards the entrance, peering out into the dark. Four shapes could be seen hobbling and lurching towards them. Faith grabbed a flashlight and pointed.

Angel and Willow were supporting Buffy, Alec was walking in front of them; he shielded his eyes from the bright beam.

"A little help?" he called out.

The group rushed forward. Giles and Faith took the wounded Buffy from Angel and Willow. Angel gasped and sank against the wall in fatigue before Xander wrapped an arm around him, holding him up,

"Okay, Deadboy, you've had enough excitement for one night," he commented dryly as the group re-entered the hideout.

Buffy groaned as she was placed in a seat, Giles gave her wounds a cursory glace.

"I need bandages, poultice, and a bowl of clean hot water," the Watcher demanded.

DeGanon nodded.

"I will bring herbs to disinfect the wound," he assured the concerned Watcher turning to another gypsy and barking out orders.

Giles returned his attentions to his ward.

"Buffy, are you all right?" he asked anxiously.

The Slayer smiled weakly and, with a grunt, slammed the Everstone down onto the table. Giles took off his glasses and peered at the gem.

"You got it," he breathed.

Buffy nodded and replied, "Damn skippy."

The gypsies returned with the medicine and bandages, and gently carried the Slayer to a makeshift infirmary. Spike followed close behind.

"Good job, baby," he whispered, kissing her head. She smiled at him and held his hand tightly as they were led away.

Alec smiled and sighed, exhausted.

"He needs blood and bed rest." he said, gesturing to Angel.

Faith walked over, concerned.

"You okay?" she asked.

Angel sighed and nodded as Faith helped him over to an overstuffed chair and gently set him down.

Xander walked over to Alec.

"What happened man?" he asked.

Alec sighed, and began counting off on his fingers.

"Buffy almost had her soul stolen by a vampire necromancer. Angel began to rot. Willow died and was raised from the grave, and I was buried alive," he replied matter-of-factly.

Xander blanched and rushed over to Willow.

"Will, you died?!" he asked askance.

His childhood friend shrugged.

"It was only for a little while," she assured, "then Buffy raised me from the dead."

Xander shot a stunned look at the Slayer.

"I had a little help," she admitted.

"Willing or otherwise," Alec commented quietly.

Xander said nothing as he turned to Willow and frowned. He touched her hair.

"What's this Will?" he asked, taking a lock of the Wiccan's hair in his hand.

Alec frowned and walked over to inspect his lover. His eyes widened.

"Whoa," he whispered.

Willow was looking back and forth between Xander and Alec.

"What? What is it?" she asked.

Xander handed her a mirror from the table, she brought it up to her face and gasped. A lock of hair, from its roots all the way to her bangs, was not its normal vibrant red - it was a snowy white.

"Huh," Willow muttered, looking at the bright white lock of hair growing on her head, then she shrugged. "Well, I guess it could be worse."

Xander and Alec looked back at each other and sighed.

"Okay, well-"

Alec was caught off guard as a small female form plowed into him, knocking him into a chair while hugging him tightly.

"Alec!" Dawn cried, embracing him with crushing strength. Her face was wet with tears of relief.

Alec smiled and stroked her hair.

"Miss me petite?" he asked wryly.

Dawn just looked up and nodded her head before going back to hugging him. He smiled and looked up at Xander,

"Xander, stay with Willow and make sure she gets some rest. I want to make sure there are no other surprises from the spell," he instructed. Willow opened her mouth to protest, but Alec cut her off with a finger. "No buts. Scram!"

Willow smiled and then headed towards the door with Xander, who started to chat with his friend.

"Come on, I can tell you some i_paramitsha_./i"

"Huh?" Willow frowned up at Xander.

Xander smiled.

"DeGanon's been teaching me some gypsy-speak, i_paramitsha_/i means 'ghost stories." After shrugging he continued. "He figured we should learn some, now that we're all part of the i_kumpania_./i"

"Huh?" Willow repeated.

"Tribe," Xander explained.

"Oh," she said wearily. "Xander, if you want ghost stories, then I have got a couple for you."

The pair of friends walked away. Anya began to follow.

i_"Anyanka."_/i

The voice was soft, sibilant, and she knew it all too well. With a resigned sigh, she slowly turned around.

D'Hoffryn stood before here, looking imperious and regal as always, and he seemed irritated.

"What is happening, Anyanka? He is still alive."

Anya looked around. She already knew what she'd see - everything around her was washed out and in muted shades of gray, her friends only flowing indistinguishable shades of the same color.

Anya and D'Hoffryn had side-stepped - been taken out of the flow of time by just a split second, out of the current dimension just enough to remain unobserved by everyone else around them. It was neither cheap nor easy to do, and it was reserved for the very motivated or the very powerful.

D'Hoffryn was both and that boded ill for Anya.

"I contacted the Lazarene vampires before the four of them set out," Anya explained.

D'Hoffryn waved away a clawed hand. "Yes, yes, the trap was lain in wait for them when they arrived. It very nearly succeeded."

"Well, i_then_/i what do you want from me?"

D'Hoffryn smiled a spider's smile and removed an object from the bilious sleeves of his robe.

"Something a bit more direct," he explained.

Anya looked down at what the demon lord brandished and gasped audibly.

"That's-"

"The Dagger of Acathla, yes." He smiled thinly. "The companion piece to the sword the knight used to pierce the demon's heart and seal the gate to Hell." D'Hoffryn gestured with it to one of the spectral shapes surrounding them. "I understand the Slayer and the vampire already have quite a history with Acathla."

Anya very hesitantly took the dagger from D'Hoffryn, regarding it like a venomous snake.

"What do you want me to do with it?" she asked.

"I thought it would look lovely on your coffee table when you and your young man get a place of your own," D'Hoffryn replied deadpan.

"What do you think I want you to do with it? Take it, and use it on the Keeper Demon. A single drop of blood, shed with this weapon, will send the victim straight to Hell. No judge, no jury, 'do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars'," he quipped.

"But Alec hasn't actually, well, i_done_/i anything yet to warrant damnation," she protested.

That was as far as she got in her argument. With a choked gurgle, Anya was hauled up off her feet as D'Hoffryn grabbed her by the throat and hoisted her into the air.

"Understand this, Anyanka - i_someone_/i is going to be Acathla's guest in Hell for the next ten thousand years. Now, it'll be either that young man or i_your_/i young man. Do you comprehend?"

Anya gasped and kicked, but nodded, and D'Hoffryn dumped her to the ground with a thud.

The demon king reached over and plucked the knife from her hands. "I'll put this in a safe place for you to find later. Fail me again, Anya, and I promise you that the only bridal gift you'll receive is a front-row seat to your own widowhood!"

With that, D'Hoffryn vanished and time snapped back into place.

"Hey, hon, you all right?" Xander asked with a hand on her shoulder.

Anya blinked back tears and then looked up, startled, before smiling.

"Yes, I'm fine, I was just thinking about sex and money," she said matter of factly.

Xander laughed and Willow rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, that sounds like on par for my Ahn. C'mon, babe, help me get Willow to bed and we can talk more about these thoughts you're having."

"Oh joy," Willow muttered as the three of them left the room.

Meanwhile, amongst the others, Angel got to his feet, only to fall backwards and land heavily against the wall.

"Angel!"

Buffy and Faith said in unison, then stopped and looked at each other. For a moment, tension hung heavy in the air. The two Slayers looked at each other carefully for a moment while Spike observed them both.

Then Buffy smiled slightly.

"Faith, do me a favor, help Angel to his bed and find him some blood. DeGanon might have leftovers from the feast or know where to get some."

The younger Slayer smiled and nodded. "I got it wired, Buffy," she replied solemnly.

Carefully, she bent down and supported Angel, helping him hobble away.

A few minutes later, they pushed open the door to Angel's room. Faith was acutely aware of the cool press of Angel's body against her own. Whenever they had fought it was something that always commanded attention, to the point of distraction. The most noticeable thing, though, had been the sense of strength, like a jungle cat poised to strike, which always seemed present in his body.

Except now; it seemed as if there was no strength at all left in his body. He felt like a rag doll in her arms and it frightened Faith a great deal.

Gently, as if he were a broken baby bird, she laid him down onto the bed on his back. Taking his face in her hands she leaned over him.

"Angel, can you hear me?" she whispered.

Angel swallowed thickly and coughed with a sudden spasm. Faith nearly leapt out her flesh. Vampires don't breathe and they certainly shouldn't cough.

i_What the hell happened down there?_/i she thought to herself as she worked to get his shirt off. She finished unbuttoning the shirt, peeled it back, and stifled a cry of dismay.

Angel's chest was a patchy gray, like the flesh of a corpse. It had a slick sheen of sweat on it that smelled like slow death; like malaria and nightmares. In the center of the wound was a handprint burnt into his chest.

"Angel…" she whispered.

Faith Lehane had never really cared for anyone; she never had a need to. No one had ever cared for her.

Except for Angel. It was Angel who had redeemed her, Angel who had saved her from herself, Angel who had protected her from Buffy, and Angel who had championed her no matter what the cost to himself.

And now it was Angel who looked like he was going to die.

"Screw that," Faith muttered.

Gently, she took Angel's head in her hands and lifted it up.

"Angel, I don't know if you can hear me or not, but I'm right here. I'm going to take care of you, no matter what. Okay?"

Angel didn't say anything, he just swallowed and coughed again. Quickly, Faith pulled off the rest of his clothing and wrapped him up in the blankets. Parts of him felt cold, while other parts were feverishly hot, and, honestly, she didn't know which to be more worried about.

"I'll be right back, Angel. I'm just going to go find you some food."

She squeezed his hand… and then felt a small thrill as his fingers slowly curled around her own and squeezed back ever so gently. Moments later, she returned with a mug of blood,

"Here you go," she whispered.

Holding the mug, she gradually fed it to him, stroking his hair back. Angel swallowed gratefully and drained the mug.

She went back and forth like that over and over again, until the man that managed the kitchen told her that that was all the pigs' blood they had. Blood was usually stockpiled as bait against the Khulghaani and they had a goodly amount of it, but still Angel had taken it all and had not yet truly recovered.

Faith didn't know what to do, but knew she had to do something. She searched around the room before she found what she was looking for - an old beer bottle; probably tossed in there by Spike. With careful aim, she smashed the bottle on the corner of the room's small end table. Hours of practice in prison paid off as the bottle broke exactly as she needed it to, giving her a serviceable shiv with a solid cutting edge.

Tugging down one strap of her tank top, she drew the shiv slowly and deeply across her shoulder. Blood, thick and red, welled up and out of the wound as she tried not to gasp in pain. Angling her arm, the brunette Slayer let the blood run down it until it pooled in her palm where she then dumped it into the mug. She repeated this process until that wound ceased to bleed, as well as the four others that followed.

i_Payback for poisoning you that time,_/i she thought wryly to herself.

Drained, she took Angel into her arms and, cradling him like a child, slowly and with great care fed her blood to him. When it was over, the cup fell from her numb fingers; she had lost all feeling in that arm and was feeling pretty light-headed to boot. For a long time, she watched him. There was nothing else to do now.

No. No, that wasn't true. There was one, last thing she could do.

Slowly, she got to one knee and reached under her collar and removed a small plain rosary: her most private and personal possession, and, clasping it in both hands, she began to pray.

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners," she prayed quietly, counting off beads as she did this.

"I've never heard you pray before," a voice rasped from off to her to side.

"Angel!" Faith cried out and dashed to his side clasping his hands in hers. However his next words froze in her throat.

"Buffy." the vampire whispered, smiling weakly at her.

The scarred Slayer's heart dropped, even as the pieces came together in her mind - her blood, Slayer's blood, had indeed sped up the healing process, but he was by no means healed. Buffy had told him that it had been i_her_/i blood that Angel had been coerced into consuming in order to cure him of the poison Faith had shot into him; those memories were now clouding his senses, causing him to mistake one Slayer for another.

Faith blinked back tears but smiled at Angel. "Yeah, yeah, it's me - Buffy," she assured him, trying hard to adopt the other Slayer's mannerisms and tone of voice. "You miss me?"

Angel nodded. "Yeah. What happened?"

"You got hurt. But you're going to be okay."

For a second, Angel tensed.

"What about you, are you all right?" he asked worriedly.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay," she soothed him.

He calmed after that and settled back against the blankets.

"I love you," he said simply.

Faith closed her eyes, squeezing them hard.

"I love you," she whispered intently.

"You do?" he sounded very surprised for a moment.

"I think so, yeah."

Angel licked his lips. "There's something in my coat pocket. Inside pocket."

Faith nodded and went over to where his jacket lay, tossed in a heap on the ground, and fished around the inside pocket. Her fingers closed around something small and metallic. After pulling it out she gasped.

It was a small ring, made of silver and designed in the shape of two hands holding a heart with a crown.

"I found it… after Acathla," he rasped, "and I've always been meaning to give it back to you."

Faith knew what this was instantly - the Claddagh ring Angel had given Buffy just before he had reverted to Angelus and then sent to Hell. Buffy had talked about it a little before things between them had gone bad. Growing up Irish-Catholic in South Boston, Faith had seen rings like this before and privately always yearned to have someone do something like that for her.

And now, suddenly, here it was. Except it wasn't really meant for her.

"Angel, I can't-"

"Please, please, just… just take it. I don't… want anything from you that you don't want to give me. It's enough to just know how you feel," he said fervently.

Reluctantly, Faith held the ring up under the light, studying how it shined. Or maybe it just seemed to shine, she couldn't be sure. Her heart was ready to burst and she didn't know what to do.

"Buffy will kill me if she catches me with this," she said quietly to herself.

"Buffy? Did you say something?" Angel asked quietly.

"Just commenting on how some things are worth dying for," she commented quietly.

Then, very deliberately, she untied her rosary and added the ring to the string of beads, allowing it to rest against the crucifix at the end. Quickly, she tied the string back together and placed the whole thing back under her shirt, next to her heart.

"Do you remember how it's meant to be worn, Buffy?" Angel asked.

i_I can't do this, I can't, this is just too much,_/i Faith thought to herself even as she smiled as memories from growing up in Boston provided the answer.

Fingering the ring, she replied. "Of course. With the heart pointed in, it means you belong to someone."

Faith jerked her head up suddenly as she heard a noise, then realized that she had fallen asleep in the chair next to Angel's bed. The noise she heard was Angel, up on his feet and getting dressed. He turned to look at her.

"Hey, you're up," he said quietly as he shrugged on his shirt. "How are you feeling?"

Faith shrugged and rubbed her eyes, looking a little embarrassed.

"Apparently, I was feeling tired. Didn't even realize I'd nodded off."

Angel nodded and finished dressing, then walked over to where she was stretching in her chair, working the kinks out of her back.

"Thanks for taking care of me, I won't forget it."

"Five by five, no worries."

Faith's expression then turned tentative. "Exactly how much do you remember?"

Angel shrugged. "Not a lot. We made it back from the Deadlands after fighting the Lazaraens and you stayed up all night feeding me pigs' blood."

"And that's it?"

"That's it. Why, what's wrong?"

Faith hesitated a moment then shook her head.

"Nothing. You were babbling in your sleep a little, that's all. Sounded like you were dreaming or something."

Angel snorted softly at that. "Was it a good dream?"

His back was turned to her so he could not see the expression on her face.

"Yeah, it was," she sighed. "So, what are you going to do now?"

Angel pulled on his jacket and turned back to face her.

"I need to go take care of something."

"What?"

"I need to talk to Buffy. About some things that are long overdue."

"Oh."

"A friend of mine gave me some good advice the other night - 'love without fear'," Angel quoted. "And after what happened down there, I realized that, even for a vampire; life is short." He turned away from Faith to finish adjusting his clothing. "I don't want to spend all my time in regret, wondering 'what if'."

"You don't say," Faith commented acidly, gritting her teeth.

Angel frowned at her tone and turned back once again to face her.

"You all right?" he asked.

Faith nodded. "Yeah, no biggie. My shoulder hurts, that's all."

Angel gently pushed aside one of her tank top straps and saw the long cuts she had inflicted on herself to feed him.

"What happened?" he asked intently.

Faith shrugged. "One of the fanged 'Uncle Fester' types from the other night got a piece of me; like I said, no big," she lied.

She gave thanks secretly to the Slayers' accelerated healing process. Because of it, the wounds looked like they could have been done during the Khulghaani attack and not just a few hours ago.

Still Angel looked dubious, but he nodded distractedly as thoughts of other things - and other people - took up most of his mind.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and then frowned. He began a hurried search of all his jacket pockets and then began looking around the room.

"Lose something?" Faith asked mildly.

"Yeah, have you seen a small silver ring?" he asked distractedly.

Faith felt the cool metal of it resting against her breast even as she frowned.

"No? Why, is it something for Buffy?"

Angel nodded. "Yeah, it's… a long story, must have lost it in the Deadlands. Damn it!" he cursed and then sighed. "Forget it, it doesn't matter."

He gave the brown haired Slayer one of his rare, heart-melting smiles; the ones that barely tugged at his lips and yet managed to yank at Faith's heartstrings whenever she saw it.

"Thanks again, Faith, I won't forget this," he promised her and headed out, leaving her alone.

"Oh," she said to the empty room, "you'd be surprised."

"You okay, princess?" Alec asked Dawn softly.

They were crashed out together on the couch and Dawn had not let him go since he had returned.

Dawn sniffled and released him, nodding.

"Yeah," she replied, smiling and wiping her eyes, "I was just scared."

Alec nodded. "Join the club," he replied dryly.

He yawned loudly and Dawn looked up.

"Whoops, I'll bet your really beat, huh?" she asked mildly.

Alec nodded. "Being buried alive can do that to you," he replied.

Dawn's eyes got as big around as saucers.

"You were buried ALIVE?" she asked, aghast.

Alec chuckled. "Trust me, I got off easy."

He got to his feet and Dawn helped him up, her hands on his chest.

"Okay, well, let me help you," she replied.

Alec chuckled. "Thanks. Guess it's your turn to tuck me in, huh?" he commented wryly.

Dawn smiled, and then threw her arms around him, kissing his cheek with blazing intensity.

"I was really, really scared," she repeated, whispering hoarsely.

Alec smiled and stroked her hair.

"Me, too, petite." He kissed her hair. "Me, too."

He yawned again as Dawn released him.

"Okay." The girl's voice got stern. "To bed with you!" she demanded, leading him away.

"Yes, Ma'am," he replied, grinning.

Dawn led him to the straw mattress and pushed him down onto the bed. Tugging at his boots, she pulled them off, then frowned and turned them over, emptying a huge pile of sand onto the floor. She looked up at Alec, amazed.

"So that's what that was," he murmured as he stripped off his coat, tossing it on the floor.

Dawn sighed and took off the other boot, emptying a second miniature sand dune onto the concrete floor. She carefully put the boots in the corner and got up, collecting Alec's duster from the floor and brushing it off with great care before hanging it up on a peg on the wall. She came back to the young man, who was still sitting upright, resting his head against the stone wall.

"Arms up!" she demanded.

Alec obliged, raising his arms obediently over his head. Dawn grabbed the bottom of his dirt-stained t-shirt and tugged it up over his head. She vainly attempted to brush off the many layers of dirt and grime from the shirt, before folding it up and placing it next to the boots. She turned back to Alec, who was, she now noticed, nude from the waist up. She started to stammer as her heart began pounding triple time.

"Um… lay down." She tried to sound stern and confident.

Alec smirked and obliged as Dawn covered him up with the blanket. He flashed her a grateful look.

"Thanks for all your help, petite," he quipped. "Those boots were awfully far away."

Dawn smiled and leaned over to kiss his forehead.

"Not a problem Alec." Her voice suddenly became stern once more. "Now, you get some rest. Don't make me beat you up!" She leveled a warning finger at him.

Alec chuckled and shook his head.

"God forbid I enrage a Summers sister," he replied wryly.

Closing his eyes, he quickly fell asleep. Dawn watched for a while as his chest rose and fell evenly with each breath. Gently, she leaned down and placed an ear to his chest, listening to his heartbeat. She closed her eyes and sighed contently, drifting off to sleep.

"Oh, this is not going to end well," Buffy said quietly as she watched Dawn and Alec together from around the corner of the hallway.

The both of them were unconscious and, while she and Dawn had made peace amongst themselves and with Willow regarding their feelings towards Alec, Buffy had to strain not to grit her teeth at the sight now before her.

"Little idiot doesn't know what she's doing," she growled.

"Taken up peeping, love? Next time let me know, I know a few local bits of crumpet that forget to draw their blinds when they change."

Buffy whirled to see Spike casually leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette.

"Hey, hon," she said melting into a semi-defensive smile. "It's not what you think."

Spike chuckled wryly. "If you're going to jump out of your skin, love, you might want to wait until your knee gets better."

Buffy laughed. "Yeah, well, you know how it is…"

Her words trailed off as she peeked around the corner, again, to peer at Alec and Dawn.

Spike caught the look and frowned.

"What are you looking at?" he asked.

Buffy snorted as she lolled her head back around to look over at Spike, rolling her eyes.

"My kid sister being an idiot," she replied scornfully.

"The kid's in love, Buffy; this isn't a crush. This is passionate, all-consuming obsession; this is blood screaming at her to work its will." He smiled slightly. "Kind of like a vampire dating the Slayer. Logic says it shouldn't have a chance, but well…" He grinned. "I've always said 'sod all' as far as logic goes."

Buffy shook her head. "She's just a kid!" she exclaimed.

Spike shook his head. "Not anymore, princess, she's come face-to-face with death a couple of times and come out alive."

"Yeah, because of me," Buffy snorted.

Spike arched an eyebrow.

"Really? Then why was I playing parasite flambé on Giles junior's back instead of yours? Couldn't be that ninja-man couldn't get out of the way fast enough, which leaves us with one alternative - he put himself in the way to protect Dawn. After all, he certainly didn't need to protect i_you_/i, did he?" He looked up at Buffy. "That sounds like Alec saving the kid's life, not you."

Buffy's eyes narrowed. "Are you implying…?"

Spike held up a hand.

"Implying, no. Flat out i_telling_/i you, that, what started off as your mission to protect Dawn, the Key, has become Alec's. And, no offense, love, but the boy seems to take it a tad more seriously than you do."

Buffy glared at him. "Can I help it if I'm just a little too busy…?"

She stopped, her eyes widening as understanding hit her like a thunderclap.

"Too busy saving the world to worry about little things like your kid sister's survival?" Spike finished. "Because, deep down, you've always been resentful of these monk blokes saddling you with a responsibility you never wanted?"

Buffy just shook her head in denial.

"No, it's not that, she just can't…" She struggled for words.

"…Be considered your problem because, inside, you really don't consider her to be your sister?" Spike asked.

Buffy looked up at him, stunned. "That's not true," she whispered.

Spike snorted derisively.

"Yeah? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but who's wracked up more scar tissue in the protection of your sister: you or him? Can you remember that being an issue i_before_/i you got clued in to the fact that your sister contained artificial ingredients?" he asked point blank.

Buffy just stood there, locked in shock.

Spike continued. "Bottom line, love - you don't consider Dawn to be a person, you consider her a thing, a creature, and you consider her an unwanted burden." He smiled slightly. "Something that, in the old days, you probably would have cured with a sewing needle," he commented.

Buffy's face had gone from white to ashen gray.

"Alec doesn't." The vampire jerked his head, gesturing to the sleeping man. "Whatever soft spot the guy might have for the kid, it really isn't important. The point is, he's taken i_your_/i duty, and made it i_his_/i, and he's done it without complaint or question and has gotten his ass kicked twice to fulfill it."

He turned back to Buffy.

"So let Dawn have her 'hearts and harps' for the guy. Because her only other choice of person to love is a sister that really never wanted her around in the first place."

He finished the cigarette and tossed it to the ground, stamping it out he turned to go.

"Here endeth the lesson," he called back at her.

"You're wrong," Buffy whispered hoarsely.

Spike turned his head slightly to regard the slayer.

"Yeah? Prove it," he replied before stepping out of the room.

Buffy just stood there, hearing Spike's damning words ringing over and over in her head, echoing, driving her mad, as she walked hurriedly away, trying to find some solitude.

Because he was right.

"Isn't it enough?" Buffy cried out to the air. "I've pulled my share! I sent Angel to Hell, I've forgiven Faith, I've died! Now I've got to protect a person that isn't even really my sister!"

She snarled, slamming her fist into the stone wall, ignoring the pain that it caused.

"I'm the Slayer! I'm responsible for the whole friggin' world! Why can't that be enough?" she shrieked and sank against the stone wall.

"Because it's our duty," a voice like silver bells called out.

Buffy jerked her head up and peered around in confusion.

"Huh?" she hastily wiped at her eyes and scanned the room.

It was empty.

"Over here," the voice called out again.

Buffy turned and faced a large puddle on the floor; she peered into the water and gasped when she saw the face on the other side.

"Marlena!" Buffy cried, gaping at the silver-haired Slayer's image in the pool. "How…?"

Marlena's image held up a hand.

"It's a trick I know. I came to congratulate you. Sasha told me you found the Everstone." She shook her head wryly. "And also that you and DeGanon are working together now." she chuckled. "Strange bedfellows." She grew serious. "But I also just witnessed the altercation between you and your paramour, and, I must say, I'm concerned."

Buffy sighed and hung her head as Marlena continued.

"The Slayer's duty is to the world, yes, but a Slayer can't be so wrapped in matters of great worldly importance that it interferes with her concern for individual people," she smiled slightly, "or individual siblings," she finished wryly.

Buffy began to speak. "But Dawn's not even…"

Marlena held up a hand.

"She is, or she would have been, if you had not been chosen as the Slayer," Marlena quietly informed the woman.

Buffy's eyes widened."What?" she asked breathlessly.

Marlena nodded.

"If you had not been the Slayer, then, when you were six or so, Dawn would have been born perfectly naturally." She gestured to the Slayer. "You would have been a big sister, one way or the other. This way was just a tad more drastic."

"But the monks said that all the memories mom and I had of Dawn were made up," Buffy exclaimed.

Marlena sighed.

"I think this should be something we discuss in person. Stand back, please."

Buffy frowned and did so. The puddle of water began to bubble and froth and, with an explosion of water, Marlena calmly stepped out of the puddle, shaking her dress dry.

"That's better. Now," she turned to face a stunned Buffy, "do you remember when your witchy friend's double showed up a few years back?"

Buffy nodded, still pretty blown away by the other woman's entrance.

"Yeah, sure. Hey, how did you know about that?" Buffy asked.

The older woman smiled. "Oh, I've been keeping tabs on you for quite some time."

Buffy frowned. "But, back at the Estate you acted like you'd never met me," she protested.

"Did I?" Marlena smiled and waved a hand dismissively. "Be that as it may, you remember how the other Willow came from a different world?"

Buffy nodded. "She said it was a world where the Master had risen," she replied.

Marlena nodded.

"Heinrich, yes. Because you never came to Sunnydale, he was freed and things turned ugly in a really bad sort of way." She held up a finger. "That was ONE reality, and a particularly grim one at that." She held up a second finger. "Another reality is one where you were never chosen as the Slayer at all. You stayed in Los Angeles, were generally well-behaved, your parents never divorced and when you were six…"

"…they wound up with Dawn," Buffy finished stunned.

Marlena nodded.

"That's another reality; all the monks did was take all the memories you and your mother had of Dawn and i_whoosh!_/i" she made a sweeping gesture with her hand, "brought them to i_this_/i reality."

"So, those memories I have of Dawn, they're real?" Buffy asked.

"Very much so, just in another reality."

Buffy sagged against the wall, feeling more than a little sandbagged by the revelation.

"So, you see? Dawn really i_is_/i your sister," she placed a hand on Buffy's shoulder, "and I can tell you right now, that in that reality, you and her are very, very close."

Buffy snorted lightly. "This is like a bad episode of i_'The Twilight Zone'_/i," she commented.

Marlena grinned. "I was always an i_'Outer Limits'_/i girl myself," she commented wryly. "Anyhow, you've got the Everstone, that's great. What's more, you've bonded with Kendra's soul temporarily."

Buffy frowned. "Huh?"

Marlena elaborated.

"During the fight with Mercurio, her soul jumped out of his body into yours briefly, which is what let you summon the stake to your hand i_and_/i what allowed you to cast that spell. Kendra wasn't kidding when she said she spent all of her free time studying. The Jamaican people have always had a real knack for things like voodoo and i_Loa_/imagic."

"Loa?"

"Spirit magic. The conjuring up of spirits of ancestors through dance and prayer," she explained.

"I always thought that was a stereotype," Buffy interjected.

Marlena looked abashed.

"Well, I'm not saying i_all_/i Jamaicans spend their free time sacrificing chickens or any of that stereotypical nonsense, just that the people come from a culture very rich in the supernatural, and Kendra, being the Slayer and all, was more in tune with that power than most."

"So, when Kendra jumped into me…" Buffy began.

Marlena threw her head back and laughed.

"What did you think the Awakening was? Turning into a giant snake?" She calmed down and grinned. "When the Slayer awakens, she acquires all the knowledge and lore from all Slayers past. Along with one or two helpful tricks."

"Like magic?" Buffy asked.

"Magic, other languages, new abilities. It's like Christmas, except every gift has something you want in it." She chuckled and placed a hand on her shoulder. "You've tasted it twice now, once against Adam, and now against Mercurio. Both times, your life was in mortal peril, and both times it granted you access to powers that you'd normally have not a i_clue_/i how to access, much less use effectively." She smiled slightly. "Granted, a stake flying into your hand isn't quite as dramatic as suddenly becoming Trinity on speed against that cybernetic spawn of Frankenstein, but pretty handy, huh?"

Buffy nodded and grinned. "You saw 'The Matrix', huh?"

Marlena grinned.

"What, you think I only use scrying to deliver cryptic warnings? Please! A girl's got to have a hobby, and, besides, I save a i_fortune_/i in ticket fees." Marlena chuckled and even Buffy laughed at that. Then Marlena grew serious again.

"The point is, Dawn's your sister, honestly and truly. Dawn is Dawn first, the Key second. Just like you're Buffy first and the Slayer second. That'll change once you awaken, though," Marlena commented.

Buffy frowned.

"You mean I won't be me anymore?" she asked sounding frightened.

Marlena grinned.

"Not at all, child. You'll always be you, you'll just happen to be i_more_/i than just you," she replied cryptically.

She winked and stepped back into the puddle.

"Now, go make nice with your man and stop treating Dawn like some kind of precious artifact that just needs to be protected against the evils of the world. She's a young woman with thoughts and feelings and a powerfully strong heart," Marlena gave Buffy a wry look, "not unlike her sister."

Giving the Slayer a jaunty wave, she took a deep breath and, folding over at the waist, dove headfirst into the one-inch deep puddle. Buffy gasped in surprise and limped over to the puddle, feeling around.

There was nothing there.

Buffy removed her hand and shook her head in awe.

"Gotta get her to teach me THAT one," Buffy muttered before hobbling away.

"Muh…?"

Dawn said groggily, lifting her head up from Alec's chest. She looked up blearily at her sister, who was standing over her with a smile.

"C'mon, kiddo. We need to go have some girl talk," Buffy said simply.

"Kay…" Dawn said, a little warily. She started to pull away from Alec and then hesitated, looking back at him worriedly.

Buffy caught the look and smirked.

"Don't worry so much kiddo, he's safe as he's ever gonna be."

"Oh, yeah that's great to hear."

Buffy led Dawn away from her sleeping brother and into the kitchen.

Dawn smiled faintly, remembering the last time she was here: sharing a bowl of cereal with Alec and Willow.

There were two cups and a thermos of coffee on the table. Buffy took the thermos and filled the cups, handing one to Dawn.

Dawn took it with a frown.

"Okay, this is new. Last time I attempted to delve into the land of caffeinated beverages, you said I wasn't old enough."

"Okay, one, you were trying to mooch my mocha latte," Buffy replied defensively, "and two…" she sighed and shrugged, "…well, maybe you're older than I've been giving you credit for."

Dawn's look of puzzlement deepened as she sipped the coffee. "Okay, now I'm afraid," she said sardonically.

"I just wanted to let you know that I love you, and that I'm proud of you. You know, for being so cool and all," Buffy said, trying hard to make it sound sincere.

Dawn looked at her thoughtfully.

"Boy, I never thought it would happen to me: I have finally met the world's worst liar."

Buffy threw her hands up in exasperation.

"Okay, you want to know how I really feel? You're a pain in the ass! You never do what you're told, you're always getting into trouble, and you embarrass me constantly in front of my friends!" Buffy exhaled hard, getting her temper under control; this was not how this conversation needed to be going.

Dawn looked really upset.

"BUT, despite all that, you're my sister. You. Are. My. Sister," Buffy said slowly, enunciating each word. She made herself really, truly believe and accept it, maybe for the first time in her life.

"Yeah, so I keep getting told," Dawn said, looking very perplexed and irritated. "What's your point?"

"The point is that I haven't been a very good big sister lately. I've been so wrapped up in myself that I failed to notice that you may be having a rough time." She looked back at Dawn. "I was only a little older than you when I was told that I was going to be the defender of the world. I didn't take it well."

Dawn nodded. "Yeah, I know. You were, like, all depressed for a whole week; I thought you were just getting your period or something."

"No, and ew!" Buffy made a face and continued. "The point was that you're younger than I was and you've already had to see some pretty awful things - being kidnapped by vampires, sludge monsters coming out of the kitchen sink, floating demon eyeballs, warlocks, sewer vampires… you've seen a lot." She smiled at Dawn. "And, against all normal Earth logic, I'm kind of proud of you."

Dawn's face began to brighten. "You are?" she asked.

"Don't get me wrong, you're STILL a tremendous pain-in-the-ass," Buffy retorted. She wrapped an arm around Dawn's shoulder and leaned against her. "But you're MY pain-in-the-ass, and I need to start treating you better," she sighed.

"What about Alec?" Dawn whispered quietly.

Buffy sighed again.

"Alec has been doing my job; he's been protector and friend to you when I should have been. He's always tried to be there for you and, like you said, he treats you like an equal." She looked down at Dawn. "I guess that goes a long way when you feel all alone."

Dawn nodded. "Yeah, it does." Her voice was thick with emotion.

Buffy turned and leaned back to regard her sister.

"You really have a thing for the guy, don't you?" she asked.

Dawn sniffled and nodded.

"Yeah, I think I do," she replied. "Faith and I talked on the camper and I told her about it. She said that it sounded like I had it bad." She looked down. "She said it sounded like I was in lov- in love with him." She stuttered over the word, saying it aloud for the first time.

"Are you?" Buffy asked gently.

Dawn looked up at her and couldn't speak, just nodded.

"Are you sure? Cause, once upon a time you would come running whenever Xander came to the door-"

"I'm sure," Dawn interrupted quietly. She looked up at Buffy, her face taut with emotion. "Every time Alec goes out with you guys, I'm so scared that he's not going to come back," she hung her head, "and when I think about that it… it feels like I'm going to die," she whispered.

Buffy exhaled hard.

"Oh, boy. Yeah, you're in love," she replied sympathetically. "But, he's, like, nine years older than you," she commented.

Dawn glared at her.

"So? How many hundred years is Spike, or Angel, older than you?" she retorted angrily, punching her sister in the arm.

Buffy looked indignant as she rubbed the spot her younger sister had struck her at. "That's different," she replied curtly.

"HOW!?" Dawn screamed at her. "How is it any different? I love him! I love him so much that every time he looks at me I feel like I can do anything in the world! I love him more every day and it's driving me crazy that I can never be with him!"

Buffy sighed and looked down. "Yeah, I know how that feels," she replied.

Dawn began to cry again and Buffy wrapped her arms around the girl with a sigh of resignation.

"You're right, it isn't different. Not at all, and it must hurt like hell."

Dawn nodded. "It's horrible…" she sobbed.

Buffy stroked her hair and kissed it.

"I know, but you don't want to lose it, do you?" Dawn shook her head.

"No," she whispered. "Not for anything."

Buffy breathed a heavy breath and held her. "Then, all we can do is wait and see what happens." She looked down at Dawn. "Do you want me to talk to him?" she asked gently.

Dawn shook her head. "No! Please, no, I don't want him to know, I don't want him to act weird around me." She sniffled. "Besides, he loves Willow," she whispered forlornly.

Buffy nodded. "Yes, yes, he does, but he also loves me and he loves his father." She looked down at her sister. "And I get the feeling that maybe he loves you, too."

Dawn jerked her head up suddenly.

"You do?" she whispered, her voice full of hope.

Buffy nodded. "It's not like it is with Willow." She smiled slightly. "Alec isn't exactly striving to earn the title of 'statutory rapist'-"

"Pfft! Like I wouldn't jump his bones given half the chance." Dawn said dismissively. "I've seen him naked now, remember?"

Buffy looked at her sister in wide-eyed, open-mouthed shock, and Dawn threw her head back and laughed.

"I loathe you," Buffy finally said when she could find her voice.

"Totally worth it for the look on your face."

Buffy rolled her eyes.

"All I was saying, before you filled my mind with horrors I'm going to need a gallon of Spike's whiskey to blot out…," she added with an askance look at her sister, who just smirked back at her, "…is that I see something between the two of you, some kind of connection."

"Yeah, that would be my unrequited love," Dawn shot back bitterly.

Buffy laughed.

"Bitter much? And, no, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the look in his eyes I see when he looks at you." She reached out and stroked her sister's face. "There's something there, you can tell he wants to protect you." She smiled, remembering the obsessive drive she'd felt in her brother's mind when she was busy digging him out of the earth. "He takes your safety pretty seriously."

Dawn smiled slightly. "He's my hero," she replied, sounding for a moment like a little kid.

Buffy grinned. " 'Ferris Bueller, you're my hero' " she quoted.

Dawn stuck her tongue out at her. "That movie sucked," she sniffled.

Buffy looked shocked. "That movie so did NOT suck! Just because Freddy Prinze Junior wasn't in it doesn't mean the movie sucked," she admonished her sister in mock outrage.

"Yeah, says you," Dawn retorted.

Buffy smiled and tousled her sister's hair.

"Come here, you little monster." Smiling, Buffy gathered her sister in a strong hug.

Dawn held her tightly. "You're really proud of me?" Dawn whispered.

Buffy nodded. "Mm-hmm," she replied.

"Buffy?"

"Yeah, Dawn?"

"You're bleeding on me."

Buffy released her sister and leapt back, looking down at her bandaged shoulder, which had begun to bleed again. She blushed and looked up; there was a faint smear of blood on Dawn's cheek.

"Whoops," she said sheepishly.

Automatically, she dabbed her thumb with her tongue and reached out to clean Dawn's face… then stopped. Smiling slightly, she handed Dawn a tissue from her purse, letting the young girl do it herself.

"Thanks," Dawn replied, taking the tissue and wiping her cheek. "This is really gross," she commented.

Buffy waved a hand.

"Trust me, be a Scooby long enough and you'll get used to it," she assured her.

Dawn snorted.

"Oh, yippee," she commented dryly.

Buffy struggled to her feet. Dawn rushed over to help her up and Buffy sent her a grateful look.

"Thanks… sis," she told her.

Dawn smiled slightly. "You're welcome… brat," she replied grinning.

Buffy laughed.

"Just out of curiosity, where did you learn to punch like that?" she asked her younger sister.

"I get it from my sister," Dawn replied matter-of-factly as she walked away.

Buffy laughed again quietly as she sipped her coffee until the footfalls of her sister faded away, and then turned her head.

"So, how did you know how I like my coffee?"

"Well, love, I once tried one of those mocha lattes when you weren't looking." Spike came out of the darkness, making a face. "Bloody awful."

The blond vampire came over to the table and plopped down into the chair opposite Buffy.

"And no, you can't have any of my rotgut to help blot out the image of your artificial sister shagging your adopted brother."

Buffy sent him a look. "Don't call them that, please."

"What - brother and sister?"

"No. Artificial and adopted." Buffy sniffed disdainfully. "They are what they are."

"Yeah, what's that love?"

"Family."

Spike grinned and took out his flask. "I'll drink to that." He toasted, taking a long pull and swallowing through gritted teeth.

"Yeah, so will I," Buffy said.

"Say, what now?"

Buffy beckoned to Spike impatiently.

"C'mon, C'mon. Make with the hooch."

Spike grinned and handed over the flask. "Be my guest, love."

Buffy took the flask with a cocky grin.

"Hey, I'm the Chosen One, more powerful than any potent potable."

"Yeah, well this potable may knock you on your Chosen One arse."

Buffy grinned and swigged back a mouthful of the stuff.

She smiled triumphantly; Spike just smiled expectantly.

And with a volcanic eruption of saliva and whiskey, Buffy spewed the substance from her mouth, coating the entire table and portions of Spike. The vampire howled with laughter even as he was wiping frantically at his shirt.

"Careful, love! That stuff's expensive!" Spike admonished her, looking down at his clothes. "And I'm pretty sure it'll eat through my clothes."

"What's in this stuff?!" Buffy gasped, still coughing and sputtering. "I mean, is being a member of the walking dead i_necessary_/i to drink it?"

Spike laughed again and dabbed at his clothes, chuckling.

"Want to go double or nothing?"

Buffy looked at him suspiciously.

"What do you mean?"

Spike gestured at the flask.

"I'll bet you that I can make you spew just like that, again. Using only half that much whiskey. If you manage to keep it down, I'll give up drinking until your next birthday."

Buffy's look slid from suspicious to dubious.

"Okay, and if I lose?"

"You have to say 'yes' to the next thing I ask from you."


	28. Chapter 24 Becoming Part 2

"Muh…

"Okay, and if I lose?"

"You have to say 'yes' to the next thing I ask from you."

"Spike, if this is anything like that time you brought that succubus demon over for your birthday and recommended that we 'broaden our horizons as a couple'…"

"And that would have been a really good time for all concerned, I'm bloody well certain," Spike grumbled. "But, no, nothing like that."

Buffy still looked uncertain as she slowly brought the flask to her lips and took a slower, steadier pull from it, careful not to take as much as she had last time. Her eyes were closed as she tilted her head back.

When she opened them again, Spike was holding a plain gold ring, with three diamond chips in the center, before her eyes.

This time, Spike was prepared for the spew of alcohol and spit.

Hurriedly, Buffy wiped at her mouth and looked at Spike.

"What the hell is this?" she asked.

"Well, let's take stock of the situation." Spike said calmly. "That is lost wager." He gestured to table, now saturated in two coats of Slayer drool and whiskey. "This is an engagement ring." He said, holding up the ring.

"And you… are my fiancéé."

"Ummm… buh?" was all Buffy could think to say.

"Well, that was the bet, or a 'gentleman's wager' if you prefer; you have to say yes to my next request. And I want you to marry me."

"What ? Are you under a magic spell again?" she asked incredulously. "Did Willow get cranky again and get you feeling all 'wind beneath my wings' again?"

"No! I just, well, I love you, and someone told me about 'loving without fear', so... will you marry me?"

Buffy looked at the ring, then at Spike, and back at the ring.

And then she burst out laughing, grabbed his head, and dragged him to the floor, kissing his face and mouth fiercely.

Spike tumbled out of the chair in a heap.

"Bloody hell!"

"You…" Buffy said between kisses, "…are a bad rude man!" she said laughing.

"Yeah, I've heard, but does that mean you're going to rip my head off and eat it? Because you seem to be working things that way!"

"Don't be silly. I need you to be alive long enough to become my husband."

"So, does that mean…?"

"It means, yes, William. Yes, I will marry you."

There was a confused period involving laughter and whooping, and maybe even a little crying, from one or possibly both of them. They both seemed truly happy.

"We have to tell the others!" Buffy grinned.

"We'll tell them tomorrow; right now, just go get some sleep. You need to rest up for the honeymoon."

Buffy laughed. "Spike, I don't plan on getting married tomorrow!"

"I plan on it being a very energetic honeymoon."

Buffy squealed with delight and left the room, grinning widely.

Spike smiled slightly at her antics, then, after she had gone, he turned to address the doorway.

"Too little, too late… mate."

Angel emerged from the shadows then, his game face in place.

"You don't know how she likes her coffee. I do," he said in an accusatory tone.

Spike leisurely got off the seat and turned to face his grandsire.

"What can I say? I saw the coffee there and decided to make the most of it. Had a nice heart to heart planned, did you?"

"You're a bastard, Spike."

"Perhaps, but this time I've got the girl, mate. For keeps."

"This wouldn't be the first time I've been able to liberate something that didn't belong to you."

Spiked shrugged and, as he did, his own game face emerged.

"You owe me, mate. And you owe, Dru. And you owe, Emily."

Angel snarled as Spike mentioned that last name.

Spike continued. "And you owe the ghosts of several Slayers."

"You don't love her!" Angel snarled.

"Oh, I do, mate. I truly, truly do. In fact, there's only one thing I love as much." Spike leaned in close. "Watching you suffer."

Angel lunged at Spike then, but the blonde backed out of the way and Angel toppled over the table, sending the whole thing crashing to the floor. Spike laughed as Angel got to his feet.

"You should never trust a snoring vampire, Angel," Spike taunted. "We don't breathe, remember?"

Angel's face slid back into human form in shock.

"You heard-?"

"-Every word between you and DeGanon, yeah! And I knew you'd hesitate. And I knew I wouldn't." Spike grinned as his own face shifted back to normal. "And I didn't. And now she's mine. And you, you're left with absolutely everything you deserve - nothing."

Spike turned and strode away from the makeshift kitchen.

"I'm going to kill you, Spike," the other vampire vowed.

"Win-win for me, mate. We fight, you lose, and you die. We fight, I die, and then Buffy kills you for murdering her husband."

The English vampire grinned. "I win, you evil son of a bitch."

Angel growled and lashed out with a fist. Spike caught his arm, twisted it, and broke it with a i_snap!_/i. Angel groaned in pain as Spike twisted his arm behind his back, bringing his teeth close to the older man's ear.

"And this time, it's your turn to be pushed aside."

With a shove, Spike sent his grandsire tumbling to the floor.

Angel slowly got to his feet as Spike left the room; he could still hear the blond vampire's laughter echoing in his ears. He didn't think he'd ever be able to forget it.

Ever.

Xander tucked the blanket under Willow's chin. She smiled prettily up at him.

"Snug?" he asked.

"Not as snug as that old He-Man comforter we used to snuggle under when we were kids. Do you remember that?"

Xander blushed and shot Anya a look, but she appeared to be distracted and didn't say anything. The ex-demon could be a little touchy about his childhood fraternizations.

"Ah, yes, good times. The smell of stale Doritos and root beer," he quipped.

"Yeah, Doritos rock," Willow agreed with a laugh.

"How are you feeling?"

Willow brought her arms up from out the blankets and reached towards Xander.

"Braaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnssss….." she moaned zombie like.

"Yipes!" Xander exclaimed and drew back.

The Wiccan chuckled to herself as she settled back against the blankets.

"So, are we okay?" Willow asked.

"Do you promise not to die anymore?" Xander said quietly.

"Deal."

Xander sighed resignedly and counted off his fingers.

"My Slayer friend is dating a vampire, I'm dating an ex-demon…" He turned a wry glance to the redhead. "…but you, you've dated a werewolf, a half-demon, and a i_girl!_/i_"_ he exclaimed with a grin. "You! You used to be the shy bookworm, what happened?"

The pair stared at each other for a moment.

"Buffy!" They both exclaimed at the same time with a laugh.

Xander got to his feet, squeezing Willow's hand.

"Okay, Wills, you get some rest." He turned to Anya. "Come on, baby."

"Huh?" Anya turned and looked up at him, like he was from another planet. "What?"

"You. Me. Taking care of Willow, now wishing her a good night and going to bed."

"Oh, yes," Turning to the other woman, Anya said with certainty. "Willow, may your pain be minimal. I hope you die painlessly should your wounds fester."

"Uhhh…… thanks?" Willow said confusedly.

Xander just rolled his eyes and led Anya away, closing the door to Willow's room, shrouding it in darkness.

For a while, the Wiccan just stared into the dark. She silently wished she'd asked Xander to light a candle, i_it's unbelievable how dark it can really get underground_/i. She shivered slightly, remembering the time she was locked in Xander's basement by accident when she was a kid.

Her breath sounded loud in her ears and the steady thudding of her heart was almost deafening. She was cold, very cold, and she didn't understand why. She hadn't been a few moments ago.

And then, with mounting fear, she listened to hear heartbeat begin to slow.

i_Thump thump! Thump thump!_/i

Willow swallowed, but her throat was dry. She began to pant and she could see her breath steaming in the cold air.

i_Thump thump…………thump……thump…_/i

She wanted to scream, to cry, to do something, anything. She opened her mouth.

"…ah," she whimpered.

i_……thump._/i

Her heart had stopped, her breath was frozen in her lungs; there was no sound. And she was certain she was no longer alone, certain that there was something else now in the room with her.

That the darkness was looking i_back_/i at her.

Like a broken puppet, a pale form emerged jerkily from the shadows. Its body writhed and contorted. It was naked and female; it walked on broken feet that folded underneath pale legs and its fingers clawed at the hair. Its head thrashed from side to side in spasms and convulsions. Her hair was matted and stuck to its face.

Willow was frightened past her ability to comprehend. She couldn't move as the naked form walked right up to her bed, thrashing and twitching.

And then... Willow saw her face.

"Tara?" she choked out.

The girl looked at Willow curiously, her head tilted back and forth, peering at her, and, in some detached part of Willow's mind, she was reminded of the way a crow peers at road kill.

Then the girl opened her mouth and, with a low gurgling wail, lunged.

Alec yawned and stretched his arms, feeling exceptionally well rested. He sat up in bed, flexing his arm, which was still tingling from the jolt he got in the gem room, and rose smoothly to his feet, holding his hands up over his head and arching his back, stretching and sighing loudly. Looking around, he padded out of the room in his socks.

He peered into some of the other rooms.

Faith was out like a light, her cot right next to Angel's who wasn't around.

Buffy and Dawn were snoozing together on Dawn's sleeping bag. Alec smiled slightly. The sisters really i_did_/i need to come together.

Spike was dozing in a chair, a half-empty bottle of tequila on the table next to him.

Alec shook his head, chuckling ruefully. i_Some people never learn._/i

Walking over to the bottle, he took a long swallow and set it down, swishing the alcohol around in his mouth, letting the bitter taste help banish the last vestiges of drowsiness from his brain. Spying a light from the other room, he padded over and gently pushed the door open.

Giles was pouring over a book, studying the Everstone intently. Hearing the door creak, he looked up.

"Oh, hello son," he smiled warmly at Alec, taking his glasses off. "How are you feeling?"

Alec nodded in greeting, sitting down next to his father.

"Better," he replied, rubbing his arm gently. "Arm's still a little sore," he gestured to the gem, "bloody thing gave me quite a jolt," he quipped.

Giles smiled and gestured at his hand. "And the ring?"

Alec looked down and frowned; sure enough, on his left index fingerrested a silver ring. It was designed to twist in on itself like a Möbius strip and cradled in the center was an elaborately cut gemstone whose facets glinted both black and white.

"Why? WHY does stuff keep randomly appearing out of or on my body?" Alec lamented.

Giles shook his head.

"I have no idea. Perhaps it has something to do with your heritage. Being brought into existence in the demon realm, where the laws of reality are immutable, may have imparted some of that chaos into your being, leaving you more susceptible to change and transformation, like the fae of old."

"Great, I'm destined to be Oberon of Arcadia."

Giles chuckled. "There are worse fates than being faerie royalty, I imagine."

"Still, between manifesting weapons and now jewelry, I'm starting to feel like I'm leasing my body instead of owning it."

"Do you know anything about the ring?"

"Not a bloody thing. Only that the Everstone is supposed to help me 'maintain balance'." Alec scrutinized his new ring. "I imagine that this small jewel is a shard of the stone, or maybe a replicate. Speaking of," he gestured at the stone, "what's the story with that thing?"

"Yes, well, it's truly fascinating. Buffy told me how you figured out the correct procedure in order to facilitate its creation." He beamed proudly at his son. "I must say, Alec, good show." He patted his son's shoulder approvingly.

Alec waved it away. "Thank you, I had help," he replied. He craned his neck to peer back into a room. "How's Buffy?" he asked.

Giles frowned.

"Well, were she a normal girl, the injury to her knee and back would be crippling. Fortunately, it turns out that the kneecap was only fractured, not broken. Her recuperative powers as a Slayer, and DeGanon's gypsy magic, have thus far helped accelerate her recovery. Still, between that and the shoulder wound, she's going to have to take some downtime," he informed him.

Alec snorted. "Bet she was jubilant to hear that," he observed wryly.

Giles snorted identically, his face mirroring his son's. "Between a cracked kneecap and back, plus an impaled shoulder, you'd think she'd be more sensible about things." He sighed, exasperated.

"She seems very driven," Alec noted, grinning. "Wonder whom she picked that up from?"

Giles blushed.

"Yes, well, be that as it may, she's going to have to rest for a while. I'm debating whether or not to leave her and Angel at the Grigori Estate with Marlena for some downtime."

Alec frowned. "Angel still not up to snuff?" he asked.

Giles shook his head. "Whatever spell Angel was subjected to, its effects were extremely debilitating. It's going to take some time for him to recover."

"I didn't think Marlena would allow vampires onto the Estate grounds," Alec commented.

"She also said she wasn't going to help us fight off DeGanon's forces when they attacked," Giles replied evenly.

Alec bit his tongue in amusement. "Touché."

He chuckled, looking around. "Looks like everyone's asleep. How long have I been out?" he asked.

Giles frowned at his watch.

"Well, you really should be asleep as well, Alec, you've only been asleep for an hour or so," he informed him.

Alec's eyes widened.

"What?" he exclaimed, "Are you sure?"

Giles nodded. "Quite sure, son, why?"

Alec shook his head.

"I just feel very well-rested, like I've been asleep for twenty hours or something," he replied.

Giles frowned.

"Do you believe that this… recuperation has to do with your demonic essence?" he asked.

Alec nodded.

"Well, yeah, must be, except… I've always been able to sleep in before." He shook his head and shrugged. "Anyhow, it's not a big deal." He got to his feet. "I'm going to go check on Willow."

Giles nodded.

"Yes, I heard the poor girl went through quite an ordeal." He frowned. "Buffy actually coerced a vampire to i_raise_/i her from the dead?" he asked amazed.

Alec nodded.

"Yeah, I'd show you the spell, except the spell book was vaporized after the spell was cast. Pretty impressive show though," he commented.

Giles shook his head in amazement.

"Buffy's never shown an aptitude for sorcery before," Giles pursed his lips in thought.

"Buffy's never had a dear friend laying cold on the slab either," Alec commented grimly.

Giles smirked. "Touché, Alec," he repeated his son's earlier sentiment.

Suddenly, Buffy burst into the room, holding up her hand and displaying a gold and diamond ring.

"I'm marrying, Spike… and I'm not under a spell! Ahhhh!" she screamed with near hysterical glee before fleeing from the room.

Both men slowly turned to exchange looks.

"Oh, I've got to find out what this is all about," Alec said with his trademark crooked grin as he bounded after his sister.

"Alec, wait!" Giles called out, but it was of no use. Alec had already left.

"First, assure me that I have not, in fact, gone back in time," the Watcher lamented to the empty room.

He sat down with a heavy sigh, holding the stone up in his hand and peering at it.

"Oh, a wedding! Rupert, that's lovely!" a voice called out.

Giles whirled to face Ethan Rayne, casually leaning against a wall, where he had not been just a moment ago.

"What are you doing here?" Giles demanded.

"At the moment, enjoying the look of shock and abject horror plastered all over your pristine Watcher gob," Ethan retorted with a nasty grin as he sat down opposite the other man.

"Drink, Ethan?" Rupert said quietly.

"Why thank you, Ripper."

Rupert reached down and lifted his satchel up from the ground. Putting it in his lap, he carefully removed a bottle of scotch.

"You'll forgive me if I do my own pouring. I'd hate to turn into a demon again," Giles said darkly.

"Are you still upset about that? Come, now… the Rupert I knew could appreciate a good joke."

Giles poured the drinks and placed the bottle back in the bag, keeping the bag in his lap as he handed a glass to Ethan.

"Many happy returns," the Watcher said quietly, raising the glass in toast.

"To the upcoming nuptials," Ethan replied.

They clinked glasses and downed their drinks. Ethan beckoned and Giles poured another shot for them both.

"So, your Slayer is marrying a vampire?" Ethan inquired wryly.

"So it would appear," Giles said calmly.

"Ha! Well, then, it's good you're no longer with the Watcher's Council or you'd be a laughing stock."

"Yes, because before all this I was the pinnacle of acclaim amongst my peers."

"Point taken."

"So, how did you find me?" Giles asked quietly.

Ethan laughed.

"Oh, come, now, Rupert. With you back in the Order; you're back on the radar. I can find you anywhere now."

"How comforting. Do the Knights now occupy Sunnydale?"

"A full compliment of the very best."

"The bystanders?"

"Blissfully unaware of them, as always. Though I imagine a few of them have noticed how much safer it seems to be getting on the streets at night."

"And the enemy?"

Ethan flashed a feral grin.

"The Knights have encouraged the opposition to behave themselves in the Slayer's absence and to not see it as a holiday."

"Yes, well, flaming swords can be very encouraging."

"You would know, Ripper," Ethan said, his voice taking on an edge.

The other man shot him a cold look.

"So, how's life treating you?" the chaos worshipper asked, changing both tone and subject.

"Uncomfortably," the ex-Watcher replied.

He began to recount the events of the last few weeks; by the time the story was told, the bottle was near empty and both men were near falling out of their seats.

"That's a hell of a tale, Ripper!" Ethan said with a crooked grin.

"I do try," Giles admitted.

"So, what are your plans now?"

Giles sent his former friend an askance look.

"Yes, because I am exactly stupid enough to tell you that."

Ethan grinned like a fox. "You don't trust me?"

"I'd sooner slit my own throat with a barber's razor."

Ethan looked aghast.

"Rupert, I'm hurt! I'm your friend! You should trust me to be willing to do that i_for_/i you!"

"I'm touched."

"You should be. Perhaps that could be my wedding present to you to celebrate the upcoming nuptials. It must be more pleasant than serving as i_de facto_/i father in law to William the Bloody."

"I'm having difficulty arguing your logic, and yet, I fear the bride would not appreciate it. To say nothing of my son."

"Ah, yes, the kids. I'd ask how they're doing, but you've summed it up nicely over the last few rounds," he said with a sickly grin as he gestured to the empty bottle.

"Well, don't get your knickers in a twist, I have another bottle here," Rupert assured his friend.

"Well done, old man," Ethan leered at him. "The guest drinks first, of course?" he insisted politely, holding his empty glass up between their faces.

"Of course," Giles assured the man as he removed a second bottle from the satchel and began to fill Ethan's glass.

"Now, let's see... For a wedding, we need 'something old'…" Ethan paused for thought and guffawed, "well, you can qualify for that. 'Something new'… I imagine a vampire marrying a Slayer is a new trick indeed."

"Not as new as you'd think," Giles said pleasantly as he continued to fill the other man's glass with scotch.

Meanwhile, Ethan carried on as if he hadn't heard Giles' words… or how his old friend managed to sound very sober, very suddenly.

"And, let's see here, 'something borrowed'… Well, I'm sure I could wire ol' Constantine in London. He was always good at 'borrowing' - their money, their women, their flats. Although, given who the bride is, I'd have to say that you've got 'borrowed' covered in a way no one else could even i_hope_/i to match!" he laughed.

Giles just continued to nod and pour.

"You know what I can't figure out, Giles?"

"What's that, Ethan?"

"How… how you managed to keep it a secret all this time. I mean, to tell you the truth, I don't know whose lineage is more interesting around here - your "son's" or hers -"

It was at that moment that Ethan noticed that his glass was overfull and spilling all over the place.

"Steady on!" Ethan cried out, backing away and flailing.

It was then that Giles removed Lily from the satchel on his lap, brought it up and over the table, aimed once, and fired.

The bullet shattered the glass, spraying whiskey all over the table, and then blasted through Ethan's head, entering and exiting in a splash of blood and bone.

Ethan looked puzzled for a moment and actually took a moment to turn his broken glass over in his hand and stare at it, puzzled.

"Split my bloody drink."

With that the chaos worshipper toppled to the floor in a gory heap.

Giles casually stood over Ethan and fired two more rounds into his head. The body twitched twice and lay still.

"You always did talk too bloody much, Ethan," Giles commented darkly as he put the gun on the table.

The bottle of scotch had been knocked off the table and was spilling its contents onto the floor in a steady trickle. Giles bent over, picked it up, and brought it to his lips, taking a long steady pull from it, and put it down on the table.

When he turned around, Ethan was sitting up.

"Well, that hurt my feelings, Rupert! Was it something I said?" Ethan gurgled through his shattered face.

Giles sighed, his mind already telling him what his eyes were seeing.

"Simulacrum."

"Well, I know what your temper can be like, Ripper, especially when it comes to your wards. And with you packing Lily again, why, there's no telling what kind of foolishness you'll indulge in! So, it seemed safer to send one of my stable of meat puppets."

"Get out!" was all Giles said.

Ethan laughed once more, then the body just went rag-doll limp and collapsed on the floor, dissolving into a puddle of waxy goo.

"Wanker," Giles muttered to himself as he took another drink and sighed.

"Did you hear that, honey?" Xander frowned, jerking his head up.

He and Anya were in their room and sitting on opposite ends of the bed, their backs to each other as they prepared to settle down for the night.

"What's that, dear?" Anya asked distractedly.

"Sounded like gunfire."

"Oh. Yes. No. Whatever answer involves us not having to do anything about it."

Xander turned to look at his lover. "Anya, you okay?"

"Yes, I'm all right. There's just been too much fighting. And I would prefer to have more sex, now."

"Well, you're going to have to wait a bit on that, honey. I threw my arm out fighting the Khulghaani or something," Xander lamented, rubbing his shoulder.

"Oh. Well, I could perhaps tie you up and torture you for a while, would you like that?"

"Uhhhhh…… no, and please stop getting bedroom advice from your demon friends. Remember what we say - 'what happens in Hell…' "

" '….stays in Hell'," they finished in unison.

"That's my girl," Xander said with a grin as he reached down to untie his shoes.

Anya, meanwhile, reached over and pulled back the blankets… exposing the Dagger of Acathla on Xander's pillow. She gasped, and hurriedly grabbed the knife, putting it under her own pillow. D'Hoffryn hadn't been happy simply to make sure she got the weapon, he also had to make sure she got the message:

_iThis is how close I can get to him./i_

Xander lifted his head. "D' you say something, hon?"

Anya shook her head. "Nope, all is well. Come to bed and fall asleep now."

"Yes, ma'am."

As he stripped off his shirt, he rubbed at his shoulder again with a groan. There was a smattering of what felt like warts or acne there.

i_Great, I'm going through puberty again_/i he thought to himself grimly. i_Must have hurt it when Alec knocked me out of the way of Will's spell_./i

"Wow, that hurts," Xander groaned.

He went to the bathroom, dabbed at his back with a wet cloth, which he tossed into the hamper once he was done, and went to bed.

He was unconscious when the cloth began to smoke and rot.

Alec closed the door and turned back to Willow. Very carefully he walked over to her and pulled back the covers, entering the bed and laying next to his lover. He turned to face her, his hand gently stroking the lock of snowy white hair away from her face, the only outward mark that the woman had died.

Died.

He shook his head. No matter how much he thought about it, he still couldn't get his mind around the concept that, for a brief time, this woman had been dead. Gone. No more. And he remembered the agony it had made him feel, how small and helpless and truly insignificant the experience had left him feeling. If he couldn't protect Willow against those zombies… what about the next time? Or the time after that? Had he lost his ability to protect those he loved most? What about Buffy… or his father… or Dawn? That last thought, the thought of Dawn lying cold and lifeless somewhere, filled his body with such dread that he squeezed his eyes shut tight and shuddered.

"Tara!" Willow suddenly cried out.

Alec nearly jumped out of his skin as Willow sat up ramrod straight, shaking.

"Baby?!" Alec cried out.

Willow looked at him and, for a moment, it looked like she didn't even recognize him. Then she fainted.

Alec caught her and cradled her in his arms.

"Willow? Willow, what's wrong? Wills!" Alec insisted.

Willow's eyes then opened slowly, drowsily, as if coming out of sleep.

"You okay?" she asked worriedly, looking at him with grave concern and seeming perfectly normal.

Alec frowned, thoroughly confused. Fortunately, it was at that point that his mind simply decided it had had enough and he just didn't want to get into it right now.

Instead he just shook his head.

"Not even remotely," he confessed. Reaching out, he stroked her face. "I'm trying to get over the fact that you died… and that I couldn't stop it. And it's killing me," he finished softly.

Willow's eyes ached with sympathy. Turning her head, she kissed his hand.

"You fought as hard as you could. You did everything you could. The only way they got past you is by threatening Buffy and Angel. They're bad guys, they cheated," she reasoned, pouting her lip and trying to cheer him up.

Alec shook his head angrily.

"But what happens next time when the bad guys cheat? I mean, if I can't protect the people I love, what good am I?" he demanded bitterly.

Willow's tone got stern.

"No talk like that, mister," she admonished. "I mean, you fight as hard as Buffy and it's not even your sacred duty or anything. You do it because you see that it's a good fight that needs fighting." She gently pushed him over onto his back and rolled atop him, peering into his eyes. "Your father is proud of you; so is Buffy, and so am I," she whispered.

Alec sighed and looked away.

"What happens when one of you winds up dead because I couldn't do anything about it? Buffy and Faith keep talking about all this power I have, how cool it is," he looked back up at Willow, "but I couldn't even save you," he whispered.

Willow sighed and gently nuzzled his face.

"But you did. You, and Buffy, and Angel, you brought me back," she whispered.

Alec snorted. "i_BUFFY_/i brought you back," he replied.

Willow shook her head.

"No," she whispered softly, her voice full of love. "Buffy got my attention, but who do you think it is I was focusing on when I came back?" She looked into his eyes. "You're the reason I came back, Alec, not Buffy or anyone else. You. I love you, Alec, I love you so much, and I couldn't die and leave you all alone," she whispered.

Alec closed his eyes and sighed hard, the tension in his face draining away.

Willow smiled and kissed him gently before reclining back against him.

"Now, there's something I want to do, and if I hear one peep of protest from you, you're going to get hurt," she threatened.

Alec opened his eyes… which promptly widened as Willow reached down and stripped off her t-shirt, leaving her top completely bare. Taking his hands gently, she placed them over her heart.

"You brought me back from the dead, Alec, now I want to feel alive," she whispered fiercely.

Bringing her mouth down she captured his lips in a passionate kiss.

Her intensity, her i_hunger_/i,overwhelmed Alec momentarily. She clawed at him, almost in a frenzy, her nails sharp on his flesh, and her skin cold.

"Your skin's like ice!" Alec cried.

Willow purred lasciviously.

"Then warm me…."

Unsurprisingly, there were no sounds of protest. Not even a peep.

Alec was fighting Mercurio's minions. His face was contorted with rage as he lashed out again and again with darkness tendrils, fighting desperately against the shambling hordes.

"Come on, you rotting bastards! Come on!" he snarled.

Lashing out with feet, fists, i_anything_/i he killed and kept killed. He could feel Willow behind him, trembling with fear as the walking corpses reached towards them with cold clammy hands. Alec snarled and struck again and again at the unending tide of undead. He saw Faith and Buffy, Anya and Willow, and everyone else engaged in battle.

"Alec!"

He whirled around to see Willow being dragged away from him by the zombies, to see Dawn torn apart by the living dead.

"No!" he roared, struggling against the onslaught of hands pressing into him, dragging him down into stinking blackness.

"Noooooo!" he screamed…

…and sat up ramrod straight in bed. His left hand exploded into hooks and blades, starting from his elbow and going all the way out to almost a foot beyond what should have been his arm.

He detected a shape before him looming in the dark. Still in the clutches of the nightmare, he didn't hesitate. He roared a sound full of hatred and fury, and stabbed. He felt the blade pierce something solid and there was a gasp.

Panting, he grabbed his lighter with his free hand and flicked it on. The room flickered in dim light.

Then he saw.

Then he knew.

"No…" he whispered. "No…"

He knew the person before him, trembling. A red stain was spreading through her shirt where it had been transfixed by his blade. He knew her face as well as he knew his own.

"Alec…" she gasped quietly.

He knew her… and he loved her.

A small gust of air, like a cold breath, blew the lighter out and the darkness swallowed them up.

There, in the darkness, Alec Giles began to scream.

_**To be Continued…**_

_The sun has set and Dusk has come to an end._

_The long night has begun and Midnight approaches._

_No one will come through the darkness unchanged._

_And some will not come out of it at all…_

_10/31/08_

_Halloween_

"_Midnight"_

_Thank you everyone for all of your support._

_To my editors and webmistresses, Kass and Rachelia, for all their amazing work, patience, and dedication, __**for without whom this would not have been possible.**__** Ever**__. _

_To Melanie, who created a beautiful banner and will hopefully create two more for Midnight and Dawn._

_To my wife. For obvious reasons._

_And, finally, to all the fans who provided the motivation and feedback to make this possible._

_If you would like a copy of this book in PDF format, please contact any one of us._

_See you all in the fall._

_-Deacon Rayne_


	29. Good evening, dear fans!

**What we've been up to:**

Throughout the summer we have been re-reading Book One of the Hellmouth Ascendant Trilogy to make sure that all the i's were dotted, the t's crossed and that any accidental inconsistencies we found were fixed. Luckily, we came up with nothing big, so the only new thing you'll find we did was to re-format the chapters to make them more uniform in style to give you a better reading experience.

**NEW!** "Dusk" is now available in PDF format. Everyone who comments with their e-mail address shall be the proud owner of all 5,99 MB and 484 pages of the first book in the trilogy. You can choose between a regular book and an autographed copy (we will be needing your preferred name for that one). You better hurry, though, because this is a limited time offer: it starts today, and ends on November 15, lasting a month. You can also email your request to

Book Two: Midnight

With Halloween just around the corner, the opportunity to post our magical story on such a magical date was just too great to pass. Barring any unforeseen incidences, the first chapter of "Book Two: Midnight" will go live on Friday, October 31, right after the clock announces the witching hour here in Europe.

The following is a hint of things to look forward to in "Midnight".

_"A Darkness is Coming..._

_Buffy, Alec and their family have retrieved the vaunted Everstone - the first of three sacred artifacts required to banish the awakened Hellmouth from this world forever - but their success may lead to their own destruction and the destruction of all they hold dear._

_Like a stopper pulled, the retrieval of the Everstone has set loose a maelstrom of powers. Things not dared been mentioned in all the ages of the world, stir and awaken within their putrescent hives in answer to the Hellmouth's call. Clawing their way free from the poisoned earth, they are driven towards a single goal – the capture of the Key and the destruction of all the world._

_For there is no victory without sacrifice, the heroes and their loved ones are at the forefront of this desperate stand against annihilation and a price must be paid. Some shall pay with their sanity. Some shall pay with their blood. And some shall pay with their immortal souls._

_As midnight falls, none shall be left untouched and no heart shall be left unscathed. For as terrifying and consuming as the dangers are that wait beyond their family... they pale in comparison to the evil that waits within._

_...Midnight Falls."_

Other information

The posting schedule will remain as it previously was - a chapter every other Saturday - which means that ch. 2 will be posted on November 15.

Feedback and critique are the fuel that stokes the fires of creativity. If you've taken the time to read a story or chapter, please leave a comment to the author with your thoughts of it. Although constructive criticism is very appreciated, you don't have to write a long reply; a few words is enough to show you are there and reading.

Enjoy!

Deacon, the author

Basilio, the community maintainer

Rachelia, the archivist


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